How to Use abiotic in a Sentence

abiotic

adjective
  • Ten amino acids could be made, and the rest could be harvested from natural, abiotic sources.
    Jeffrey Marlow, Discover Magazine, 21 Mar. 2017
  • Furthermore, the curved and bent filaments seem to rule out any abiotic look-alikes.
    Jennifer Frazer, Scientific American, 24 Sep. 2021
  • Vet their claim that there can be no abiotic mechanisms.
    Leonard David, Scientific American, 23 Sep. 2020
  • If so, the problem is more likely to be with your an abiotic issue, such as soil nutrients, than with a living pest.
    oregonlive, 7 May 2020
  • This type of stress is called abiotic stress and results from unmet plant needs, usually too much or too little of something.
    Rita Perwich, San Diego Union-Tribune, 1 Apr. 2023
  • The time young sharks spend in nurseries depends on both biotic and abiotic factors that aren't fully understood.
    Melissa Cristina Márquez, Forbes, 10 Oct. 2022
  • Its creators hope to soon program the bot to measure young plant health, corn ear height, soybean pods, plant biomass as well as detect and identify diseases and abiotic stresses, according to the site.
    Rachael Lallensack, Smithsonian, 1 Oct. 2019
  • Another was a sample from the Murchison meteorite, a bolide rich in organic (but abiotic) carbon compounds that fell to Earth in 1969.
    Natalie Elliot, Scientific American, 23 Nov. 2021
  • Is that something a fungus or bacteria does, or is there some abiotic chain-reaction taking place?
    Alex Fox, Smithsonian Magazine, 8 Oct. 2020
  • Serious disease, insect or abiotic problems in western red cedar usually cause overall discoloration, thinning of the crown, dieback of the top and then the entire tree.
    oregonlive, 12 Dec. 2020
  • As always, though, there are totally abiotic pathways that could create these molecules as well.
    Nathaniel Scharping, Discover Magazine, 27 June 2018
  • Wheat, rice, corn, barley, rye and oats are some of the grasses that can be self-pollinated but also utilize biotic and abiotic (wind) pollinators.
    Jodi Bay, San Diego Union-Tribune, 13 Mar. 2021
  • Right here on our own planet, structures suggested to be of organismal origins are often later shown to have abiotic provenance.
    Robin George Andrews, Scientific American, 6 Aug. 2021
  • Some of these abiotic pathways would not only produce an excess of oxygen, but would also render a planet totally lifeless.
    Lee Billings, Scientific American, 22 Feb. 2017
  • The trouble is that many simple biosignatures can be produced both by living things and through abiotic geochemical processes.
    Natalie Elliot, Scientific American, 16 July 2021
  • The biotic and abiotic elements that render Socotra so unique have existed and evolved there for millions of years, many remaining effectively unchanged in this time.
    Vogue, 17 Feb. 2023
  • But the team aims to show that geochemical models, which simulate how water saturated with chemicals will precipitate them out, will predict the kind of abiotic crystals found there.
    Sarah Scoles, Scientific American, 13 Jan. 2023
  • While some abiotic processes can also make the compound under certain conditions, the team’s analysis suggested those processes weren’t likely to occur on Venus.
    Quanta Magazine, 3 Nov. 2022
  • Phosphine, the argument goes, is not generally expected to be produced, or to survive for very long, in the abiotic (nonliving) chemistry anticipated for this part of Venus’s environment.
    Caleb A. Scharf, Scientific American, 5 Oct. 2020
  • For example, Curiosity detected organic matter on Mars, but the rover lacks the tools to determine if those building blocks for life arose from ancient Martian biology or from abiotic Martian chemistry.
    Eva Botkin-Kowacki, The Christian Science Monitor, 30 July 2020
  • The classes do studies on biotic and abiotic components and activities designed for general observations in the school's outdoor classroom spaces.
    Alec Johnson, Journal Sentinel, 5 Jan. 2023
  • Ecological change provokes speciation and extinction, but our knowledge of the interplay among the biotic and abiotic drivers of macroevolution remains limited.
    Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 20 Apr. 2011
  • For seamless, minimally invasive integration of an abiotic system, like electronics, with a biological one, the mechanics and shapes must match up precisely.
    Valerie Ross, Discover Magazine, 19 Nov. 2013
  • Some have even suggested that these biological compounds formed in the abiotic environment of space, aboard objects like comets, asteroids, meteoroids, and interplanetary dust particles.
    Chelsea Gohd, Discover Magazine, 20 Dec. 2018
  • But subsequent studies showed the putative microfossils could have easily been produced by several other entirely abiotic routes.
    Natalie Elliot, Scientific American, 23 Nov. 2021
  • Six-part series includes topics on: the cell and structure of a plant, mineral nutrition and photosynthesis, respiration and metabolism, inorganic nutrients and hormones, plant babies, cell death, biotic and abiotic stress.
    Elaine Rewolinski, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 21 Dec. 2017
  • Six-part series includes topics on: The cell and structure of a plant, mineral nutrition and photosynthesis, respiration and metabolism, Inorganic nutrients and hormones, Plant babies, Cell death, biotic and abiotic stress.
    Elaine Rewolinski, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 11 Jan. 2018
  • Meanwhile, other researchers have never stopped searching for alternative abiotic explanations.
    Adam Mann, Scientific American, 14 Sep. 2020
  • Importantly, however, these elemental proportions change in accordance with cell size, allowing for an additional check on any curiously consistent but possibly abiotic chemical ratios on another world.
    Natalie Elliot, Scientific American, 16 July 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'abiotic.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: