• sim-bee-OH-sis • noun
1 : the living together in close association of two dissimilar organisms especially when mutually beneficial 2 : a cooperative relationship
[Ro] simbioza [biol.]
Example sentence:
A perfect symbiosis was between the café’s co-owners, with Stephanie creating the menu and Maria doing the bookkeeping.
Între coproprietarii cafenelei a fost o simbioză perfectă, Stephanie compunea meniul şi Maria era contabila.
Symbiosis was adopted by the scientific community in the late 1800s, though it had appeared in English in a non-scientific sense as far back as 1622. When a biological symbiosis is mutually beneficial, it is termed mutualism. For example, when the yucca moth lays her eggs in the seed pods of the yucca, she acts as pollinator. When one organism lives off another at the other’s expense, it’s called parasitism. Symbiosis came to us, via German and New Latin, from the Greek symbiōsis, meaning state of living together. Symbiōsis, in turn, traces to symbios (living together), a combination of syn-, meaning with, and bios, meaning life.
