organic matter

(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)

The animate world

Nouns

1. organic matter, organization, organized nature or world, animated or living nature, living beings; biogenesis, evolution, microevolution, natural selection; genetic engineering, biotechnology, genetic code, genetic engineering or isolation, gene counseling, gene pool, gene therapy or splicing, crossbreeding, backcrossing; human genome.

2. five kingdoms, Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, Protista, Monera; agnatha, amphibia, annelida, anthophyta, arachnida, arthropoda, aves, bryophyta, chondrichthyes, chordata, coniferophyta, crustacea, echinodermata, eumetazoa, eutheria, insecta, invertebrata, mammalia, mesozoa, metatheria, metazoa, mollusca, nematoda, osteichthyes, parazoa, prototheria, protozoa, pterophyta, reptilia, sarcodina, vertebrata; flora, fauna, biota; organic remains, fossils, petrified organisms. See animal, humanity, vegetable, life.

3. organism, plankton; cell, plasma, protoplasm, cytoplasm, ectoplasm, etc; [recombinant or junk] DNA, RNA, etc., adenosine, thymine, cytosine, guanine, adenine, purine, pyrmidine, transposon, cosmid, double helix, exon, nucleic acid, plasmid; ovum, egg or sperm cell, spermatozoon, gamete, semen, seed; spore; nucleus; genome, karyotype, [X, Y, or Z] chromosome, autosome, prophase, chromatid, homolog; cell division, mitosis; gene, nucleotide, allele, genome, plasmid, adenovirus, operon, codon, liposome, oncogene, retrovirus, exon, intron, heterozygote, homozygote, imprinted gene, minos, pseudogene, damper gene, obesity gene, retro-transposon, stuttering gene, suicide gene, gay gene. See reproduction.

4. [alpha or beta] cell, adipocyte, basophil, calmodulin, centriole, chloro-plast, cytochrome, cytokinesis, cytoplasm, cytoskeleton, desmosome, endocytosis, erythrocyte, eukaryote, exocytosis, glial cell, clycolysis, granulocyte, leukocyte, lymphocyte, lysosome, megakaryocyte, memory cell, microphage, mitochondria, monocyte, neutrophil, nucleolus, organelle, osteoplast, oxyntic cell, parietal cell, peroxisome, phagocytosis, plasma cell, platelet, prokaryote, ribosome.

5. biology, natural history; organic chemistry, anatomy, zoology, botany, bacteriology, biochemistry, bionics, proteomics, genomics, biophysics, embryology, microbiology, molecular biology, biotechnology, cytology, chromosomology, genetics; biologist, zoologist, etc.

Adjectives — organic, vital, biotic, biological; protoplasmic, plasmic, plasmatic, cellular, nuclear; chromosomal, haploid, diploid; embryonic, germinal; structural, anatomic[al].

Quotations — The biologist passes, the frog remains (Edmond Rostand), The essence of life is statistical improbability on a colossal scale (Richard Dawkins), All things are artificial, for nature is the art of God (Thomas Browne), Nature is not a temple, but a workshop, and man's the workman in it (Ivan Turgenev), Everything from an egg (William Harvey).

Antonyms, see inorganic matter.