Cyanobacterium

Origin

From - + bacterium.

Full definition of cyanobacterium

Noun

1. (biology) Any of very many photosynthetic prokaryotic microorganisms, of phylum Cyanobacteria, once known as blue-green algae.
• 2003, Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, BCA 2003, p. 262:At some point in the first billion years of life, cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, learned to tap into a freely available resource – the hydrogen that exists in spectacular abundance in water.
• 2011, Terence Allen and Graham Cowling, The Cell: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford 2011, p. 91:Photosynthesis was established some billion years ago by ancient bacterial precursors of modern cyanobacteria.

Synonyms

• blue-green alga

Hypernyms

• bacterium