Organogenesis

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The biological process by which organs are formed and differentiated in an embryo involves a complex series of developmental stages
2. This term encompasses the systematic progression of organ development from embryonic tissues within living organisms
3. The process of forming and differentiating organs during embryo development involves intricate biological mechanisms and stages

Etymology: Organogenesis is a plain technical compound, built from "organo-" (from the Greek "organon," meaning tool or instrument, which came to mean a bodily organ) and "-genesis," from Greek "génesis," meaning origin, coming into being, or production. The second element is the same one found in "genesis" itself, so the word literally names the creation of organs. Its tidy Greek construction reflects a modern scientific coinage rather than any ancient usage: the ancient Greeks had the parts, but the combined term was assembled later from classical building blocks to describe how tissues in an embryo differentiate into functioning organs.