superorganism
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.50 in modern English
18
Scrabble Score
13
Letters
5
Syllables
11
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A social colony of individuals who, through division of labour, effective communication and self-organization, form a highly connected community that functions as if it were a single organism.
Example Sentences
- "A superorganism is an ensemble of living and non-living matter, which acts as a single self-regulating system. […] Gaia is the largest and most complex superorganism we know."
- "To grasp why Metaman—our strange amalgam of concrete, humans, computer chips, and various plants and animals—is a superorganism rather than merely an elaborate “social grouping” of humans, look at another, far simpler grouping of organisms—a termite colony."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *úp Proto-Indo-European *-er Proto-Indo-European *upér Proto-Italic *super Latin super Latin super-lbor. English super- Proto-Indo-European *werǵ-der. Ancient Greek ὄργανον (órganon)bor. Latin organumder. Old French organebor. Middle English organe English organ Proto-Indo-European *-id- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-idyéti Proto-Hellenic *-íd͏̌d͏̌ō Ancient Greek -ῐ́ζω (-ĭ́zō) Proto-Indo-European *-mos Proto-Indo-European *-mós Ancient Greek -μός (-mós) Ancient Greek -ισμός (-ismós)der. English -ism English organism English superorganism From super- + organism.