Extremophile

Origin

From extreme + -o- + -phile.

Full definition of extremophile

Noun

1. (biology) An organism that lives under extreme conditions of temperature, salinity etc; commercially important as a source of enzymes that operate under similar conditions.
• 2003, Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, BCA, p. 207:They had found the world's first extremophiles – organisms that could live in water that had previously been assumed to be much too hot or acid or choked with sulphur to bear life.