Necrophytes

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A plant that obtains its nourishment from decaying or dead organic material rather than from photosynthesis
2. An organism of the plant kind that lives off the remains of dead tissue instead of making its own food
3. Any vegetable life form that draws its sustenance from decomposing matter and dead organisms

Etymology: Necrophytes is the plural of "necrophyte," a term for a plant that feeds on dead organic matter. The word is built from two Greek-derived parts: "necro-," from Greek "nekros," meaning "corpse" or "dead body," and "-phyte," from Greek "phyton," meaning "plant." Put together, the word literally describes a plant that lives off the dead. The combining forms show how readily scientific vocabulary is assembled from classical building blocks. "Necro-" appears in words such as "necrosis" and "necropolis," while "-phyte" turns up in "epiphyte" and "saprophyte." Because both elements come from ancient Greek, the word looks old, but it was coined as a technical term rather than inherited from classical texts, and the ancient Greeks had no word for a plant of this kind.