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[ bahy -oh ]

• biography .
• biographical .

a bio control service using praying mantises to reduce the population of garden pests.

• a combining form meaning “life” occurring in loanwords from Greek ( biography ); on this model, used in the formation of compound words ( bioluminescence ).

combining_form

• short for biography

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Word history and origins.

Origin of bio 1

Origin of bio 2

Example Sentences

That tweet came from Shay Horse, whose bio lists him as an independent photojournalist with ties to Occupy Wall Street.

In her Twitter profile bio, writer Liz Tuccillo calls herself a “relationship know-it-all.”

Nicaragua is the largest country in Central America, and one of the most bio-diverse and beautiful.

A brief bio is to be found in a deposition she gave in the criminal case before the felony charge was dropped.

This renewable (I mean renewed every single damn day) bio-energy (otherwise known as fetid rot) helps keep the coop warm.

All this is part of a vast new science which is called bio-chemistry, or the chemistry of life.

He has a sense of humor about all things except this sacred bio-chemistry.

Or bio-weapons; a man-made plague that had gotten out of control and all but depopulated the planet.

The same law holds good in bio-geography; here, too, area gives strength and a small territorial foothold means weakness.

The relation of life to the earth's area is a fundamental question of bio-geography.

Related Words

• autobiography
• recollection
• reminiscence

Words That Use bio-

What does  bio-  mean.

The combining form bio – is used like a prefix meaning “life.” It is often used in scientific terms, especially in biology .

The form bio – comes from Greek bíos , meaning “life.” The Latin cognate of bíos is vīta , “life,” which is the source of words such as vital . Find out more at our entry for vital .

What are variants of bio -?

When combined with words or word elements that begin with a vowel, bio – becomes bi – , as in biome . Want to know more? Read our Words That Use article for bi -.

Examples of  bio-

An example of a word you may have encountered that features bio – is biography , “a written account of another person’s life.” Biography comes from Greek biographía , which uses the equivalent of the form in the language.

We know bio – means “life,” while the – graphy portion of the word refers to “writing,” from Greek – graphia . Biography literally translates to “life writing.”

What are some words that use the combining form bio -?

• bioaeronautics
• biobehavioral
• biobibliography
• biodegradable
• bioelectricity
• bioflavonoid
• biology (using the equivalent form of bio – in German)
• biotope (using the equivalent form of bio – in German)

What are some other forms that bio- may be commonly confused with?

Break it down!

The combining form – logy is used to name branches of science or areas of study. With this in mind, what does biology literally mean?

Definition of Biography

A biography is the non- fiction , written history or account of a person’s life. Biographies are intended to give an objective portrayal of a person, written in the third person. Biographers collect information from the subject (if he/she is available), acquaintances of the subject, or in researching other sources such as reference material, experts, records, diaries, interviews, etc. Most biographers intend to present the life story of a person and establish the context of their story for the reader, whether in terms of history and/or the present day. In turn, the reader can be reasonably assured that the information presented about the biographical subject is as true and authentic as possible.

Biographies can be written about a person at any time, no matter if they are living or dead. However, there are limitations to biography as a literary device. Even if the subject is involved in the biographical process, the biographer is restricted in terms of access to the subject’s thoughts or feelings.

Biographical works typically include details of significant events that shape the life of the subject as well as information about their childhood, education, career, and relationships. Occasionally, a biography is made into another form of art such as a film or dramatic production. The musical production of “Hamilton” is an excellent example of a biographical work that has been turned into one of the most popular musical productions in Broadway history.

Common Examples of Biographical Subjects

Most people assume that the subject of a biography must be a person who is famous in some way. However, that’s not always the case. In general, biographical subjects tend to be interesting people who have pioneered something in their field of expertise or done something extraordinary for humanity. In addition, biographical subjects can be people who have experienced something unusual or heartbreaking, committed terrible acts, or who are especially gifted and/or talented.

As a literary device, biography is important because it allows readers to learn about someone’s story and history. This can be enlightening, inspiring, and meaningful in creating connections. Here are some common examples of biographical subjects:

• political leaders
• entrepreneurs
• historical figures
• serial killers
• notorious people
• political activists
• adventurers/explorers
• religious leaders
• military leaders
• cultural figures

Famous Examples of Biographical Works

The readership for biography tends to be those who enjoy learning about a certain person’s life or overall field related to the person. In addition, some readers enjoy the literary form of biography independent of the subject. Some biographical works become well-known due to either the person’s story or the way the work is written, gaining a readership of people who may not otherwise choose to read biography or are unfamiliar with its form.

Here are some famous examples of biographical works that are familiar to many readers outside of biography fans:

• Alexander Hamilton (Ron Chernow)
• Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder (Caroline Fraser)
• Steve Jobs (Walter Isaacson)
• Churchill: A Life (Martin Gilbert)
• The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary (Simon Winchester)
• A Beautiful Mind (Sylvia Nasar)
• The Black Rose (Tananarive Due)
• John Adams (David McCullough)
• Into the Wild ( Jon Krakauer )
• John Brown (W.E.B. Du Bois)
• Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo (Hayden Herrera)
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Rebecca Skloot)
• Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (Doris Kearns Goodwin)
• Shirley Jackson : A Rather Haunted Life ( Ruth Franklin)
• the stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit (Michael Finkel)

Difference Between Biography, Autobiography, and Memoir

Biography, autobiography , and memoir are the three main forms used to tell the story of a person’s life. Though there are similarities between these forms, they have distinct differences in terms of the writing, style , and purpose.

A biography is an informational narrative and account of the life history of an individual person, written by someone who is not the subject of the biography. An autobiography is the story of an individual’s life, written by that individual. In general, an autobiography is presented chronologically with a focus on key events in the person’s life. Since the writer is the subject of an autobiography, it’s written in the first person and considered more subjective than objective, like a biography. In addition, autobiographies are often written late in the person’s life to present their life experiences, challenges, achievements, viewpoints, etc., across time.

Memoir refers to a written collection of a person’s significant memories, written by that person. Memoir doesn’t generally include biographical information or chronological events unless it’s relevant to the story being presented. The purpose of memoir is reflection and an intention to share a meaningful story as a means of creating an emotional connection with the reader. Memoirs are often presented in a narrative style that is both entertaining and thought-provoking.

Examples of Biography in Literature

An important subset of biography is literary biography. A literary biography applies biographical study and form to the lives of artists and writers. This poses some complications for writers of literary biographies in that they must balance the representation of the biographical subject, the artist or writer, as well as aspects of the subject’s literary works. This balance can be difficult to achieve in terms of judicious interpretation of biographical elements within an author’s literary work and consideration of the separate spheres of the artist and their art.

Literary biographies of artists and writers are among some of the most interesting biographical works. These biographies can also be very influential for readers, not only in terms of understanding the artist or writer’s personal story but the context of their work or literature as well. Here are some examples of well-known literary biographies:

Example 1:  Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay  (Nancy Milford)

One of the first things Vincent explained to Norma was that there was a certain freedom of language in the Village that mustn’t shock her. It wasn’t vulgar. ‘So we sat darning socks on Waverly Place and practiced the use of profanity as we stitched. Needle in, . Needle out, piss. Needle in, . Needle out, c. Until we were easy with the words.’

This passage reflects the way in which Milford is able to characterize St. Vincent Millay as a person interacting with her sister. Even avid readers of a writer’s work are often unaware of the artist’s private and personal natures, separate from their literature and art. Milford reflects the balance required on the part of a literary biographer of telling the writer’s life story without undermining or interfering with the meaning and understanding of the literature produced by the writer. Though biographical information can provide some influence and context for a writer’s literary subjects, style, and choices , there is a distinction between the fictional world created by a writer and the writer’s “real” world. However, a literary biographer can illuminate the writer’s story so that the reader of both the biography and the biographical subject’s literature finds greater meaning and significance.

Example 2:  The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens  (Claire Tomalin)

The season of domestic goodwill and festivity must have posed a problem to all good Victorian family men with more than one family to take care of, particularly when there were two lots of children to receive the demonstrations of paternal love.

Tomalin’s literary biography of Charles Dickens reveals the writer’s extramarital relationship with a woman named Nelly Ternan. Tomalin presents the complications that resulted for Dickens from this relationship in terms of his personal and family life as well as his professional writing and literary work. Revealing information such as an extramarital relationship can influence the way a reader may feel about the subject as a person, and in the case of literary biography it can influence the way readers feel about the subject’s literature as well. Artists and writers who are beloved , such as Charles Dickens, are often idealized by their devoted readers and society itself. However, as Tomalin’s biography of Dickens indicates, artists and writers are complicated and as subject to human failings as anyone else.

Example 3:  Virginia Woolf  (Hermione Lee)

‘A self that goes on changing is a self that goes on living’: so too with the biography of that self. And just as lives don’t stay still, so life-writing can’t be fixed and finalised. Our ideas are shifting about what can be said, our knowledge of human character is changing. The biographer has to pioneer, going ‘ahead of the rest of us, like the miner’s canary, testing the atmosphere , detecting falsity, unreality, and the presence of obsolete conventions’. So, ‘There are some stories which have to be retold by each generation’. She is talking about the story of Shelley, but she could be talking about her own life-story.

In this passage, Lee is able to demonstrate what her biographical subject, Virginia Woolf, felt about biography and a person telling their own or another person’s story. Literary biographies of well-known writers can be especially difficult to navigate in that both the author and biographical subject are writers, but completely separate and different people. As referenced in this passage by Lee, Woolf was aware of the subtleties and fluidity present in a person’s life which can be difficult to judiciously and effectively relay to a reader on the part of a biographer. In addition, Woolf offers insight into the fact that biographers must make choices in terms of what information is presented to the reader and the context in which it is offered, making them a “miner’s canary” as to how history will view and remember the biographical subject.

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Meaning of biography in English

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• This biography offers a few glimpses of his life before he became famous .
• Her biography revealed that she was not as rich as everyone thought .
• The biography was a bit of a rush job .
• The biography is an attempt to uncover the inner man.
• The biography is woven from the many accounts which exist of things she did.
• exercise book
• novelistically
• young adult

biography | American Dictionary

• biographical

Examples of biography

Translations of biography.

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For National Poetry Month, tell NPR about a poem that's changed your life

Suzanne Nuyen

The Academy of American Poets launched National Poetry Month in April 1996 to celebrate the role of poets and poetry in American culture. Since then, it's become one of the largest literary celebrations in the world.

This year, NPR wants to know about the poems and poets that have shaped your life. Have you read a poet who changed your outlook on life? Has a poem stuck with you over the years, or brought you pure joy? Perhaps you are a poet yourself. Tell us about how poetry has impacted your life, and you could be featured in an upcoming edition of the Up First newsletter.

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Why would Islamic State attack Russia and what does this mean for the terrorism threat globally?

Chair in Global Islamic Politics, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University

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Greg Barton receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is engaged in a range of projects funded by the Australian government that aim to understand and counter violent extremism in Australia and in Southeast Asia and Africa.

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It appears almost certain the brutal assault on a Russian crowd settling down to watch a rock concert in Moscow on Friday night was an Islamist terrorist attack .

At least 133 people were left dead and scores more were injured after gunmen with automatic weapons stormed the Crocus City Hall in Moscow and opened fire, triggering a stampede.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, initially through its Amaq media channel and then directly. The modus operandi of the attack also fits with previous Islamic State attacks.

It has been widely reported the attack was the work of Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), a branch established in 2015 in Afghanistan.

So who is this group, why would they attack Russia and what does this mean for the broader terrorism threat?

Read more: Iran terror blast highlights success – and growing risk – of ISIS-K regional strategy

What is ISIS-K?

ISIS-K is the Islamic State branch that has most consistently and energetically attempted terrorist attacks across Europe, including in Russia . ISIS-K has planned some 21 attacks in nine countries in the past year, up from eight the previous year.

ISIS-K had been under tremendous pressure from the Afghan Special Forces and American troops before the United States full withdrew from the country in 2021. Although that pressure has continued under Taliban rule, ISIS-K has grown in strength in recent years, with several thousand fighters now operating in almost every one of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.

If ISIS-K is indeed responsible for the Moscow attack, we should prepare for further attempted attacks – not just in Russia but across Europe.

European authorities have arrested ISIS-K operatives on multiple occasions. After years of warnings that Islamic State was rebuilding the capacity and resolve to resume an international terrorist campaign, Friday’s attack shows the threat is immediate and substantial.

Read more: A string of assassinations in Afghanistan point to ISIS-K resurgence – and US officials warn of possible attacks on American interests in next 6 months

Earlier this month, the US, together with five other nations, had shared intelligence they had of ISIS-K planning for attacks in Moscow. But these warnings were, as recently as last week, rejected by President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin as being part of an attempt to discredit Russia.

The attack comes at the worst possible moment for Russia’s despotic leader, in the wake of his successful “election campaign” to claim a mandate for a further six years in power.

And it is perhaps for this reason that Putin’s five-minute televised address on Saturday, in which he directed blame toward Ukraine, came so late.

We don’t yet know whether the Kremlin will continue to blame Ukraine or the West for the attack, or if it will pivot to accept Islamic State was responsible.

Either way, it’s likely to respond with a wave of violence, cracking down on Russia’s Muslim minority communities in the North Caucasus region and beyond.

Why would they target Russia?

Both Islamic State in general, and ISIS-K in particular, have long proclaimed their intention of striking Russia.

They have cited Russia’s earlier military occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s and its long history of crackdowns on Muslim communities in Russia, particularly in the North Caucasus. They have also cited Russia’s role in providing a lifeline to the brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

But it was also likely opportunity and personnel that led the group to select a soft target in Moscow, as much as anything else.

Islamic State carried out multiple attacks in Russia from 2016–19, while several more plots were disrupted from 2021–23.

Many of the ISIS-K militants arrested across Europe, including in Russia, over the past two years have been Russian nationals and people from Central Asia with links to Russia.

The most recent arrests occurred this month when Russian authorities claimed they prevented a planned attack on a synagogue in Moscow.

And last month, a Russian national accused of having Islamic State links was arrested in Poland , while another was arrested working at a nuclear facility under construction in Turkey.

In recent years, the vast majority of successful ISIS-K attacks have been in Afghanistan, with many targeting the minority Shia Muslim Hazara community.

For instance, the group launched a massive suicide bombing outside the Kabul airport in August 2021, in the midst of the chaotic evacuation of Kabul, which resulted in around 170 civilians and 13 US military personnel being killed.

ISIS-K also carried out a bombing of the Russian Embassy in Kabul in September 2022, killing at least six.

In January of this year, ISIS-K launched a massive suicide bombing in Kerman, Iran, killing nearly 100 people at a ceremony to mark the fourth anniversary of the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani.

What next for Putin and the broader terrorism threat?

Terrorist attacks, including those in brutal regimes like Iran or Russia, are tragic assaults on ordinary people who are not to blame for the politics of policies of the governments they are forced to live under.

When attacked, authoritarian regimes tend to respond with brutal reprisals that are likely to lead to cycles of violence, with less restraint and accountability than is typically the case with counter-terrorism operations in open societies.

Friday night’s attack in Moscow was nightmarish, but sadly the horror is likely to be just the beginning.

Regardless of how Putin and the Kremlin choose to respond, the attack comes as a reminder that the threat of terrorism posed by groups like Islamic State and al-Qaeda is now on the rise again. After five years of mostly operating in western Asia, the Middle East and Africa, these groups now pose a renewed threat to the West.

The continued growth of both ISIS-K and al-Qaeda under Taliban rule in Afghanistan should concern us much more than we have been acknowledging.

Friday’s attack is a clear reminder we should not look away and continue to wash our hands of any attempt to improve things in Afghanistan. There are no easy answers, but turning away and doing nothing will only make the situation worse.

Read more: What can we expect from six more years of Vladimir Putin? An increasingly weak and dysfunctional Russia

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• Islamist extremism

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Could Eating Less Help You Live Longer?

Calorie restriction and intermittent fasting both increase longevity in animals, aging experts say. Here’s what that means for you.

By Dana G. Smith

If you put a lab mouse on a diet, cutting the animal’s caloric intake by 30 to 40 percent, it will live, on average, about 30 percent longer. The calorie restriction, as the intervention is technically called, can’t be so extreme that the animal is malnourished, but it should be aggressive enough to trigger some key biological changes.

Listen to this article with reporter commentary

Scientists first discovered this phenomenon in the 1930s, and over the past 90 years it has been replicated in species ranging from worms to monkeys. The subsequent studies also found that many of the calorie-restricted animals were less likely to develop cancer and other chronic diseases related to aging.

But despite all the research on animals, there remain a lot of unknowns. Experts are still debating how it works, and whether it’s the number of calories consumed or the window of time in which they are eaten (also known as intermittent fasting) that matters more.

And it’s still frustratingly uncertain whether eating less can help people live longer, as well. Aging experts are notorious for experimenting on themselves with different diet regimens, but actual longevity studies are scant and difficult to pull off because they take, well, a long time.

Here’s a look at what scientists have learned so far, mostly through seminal animal studies, and what they think it might mean for humans.

Why would cutting calories increase longevity?

Scientists don’t exactly know why eating less would cause an animal or person to live longer, but many hypotheses have an evolutionary bent. In the wild, animals experience periods of feast and famine, as did our human ancestors. Therefore, their (and conceivably our) biology evolved to survive and thrive not only during seasons of abundance, but also seasons of deprivation.

One theory is that, on a cellular level, calorie restriction makes animals more resilient to physical stressors. For example, calorie-restricted mice have greater resistance to toxins and recover faster from injury, said James Nelson, a professor of cellular and integrative physiology at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

Another explanation involves the fact that, in both humans and animals , eating fewer calories slows down metabolism. It’s possible that “the less you have to get your body to metabolize, the longer it can live,” said Dr. Kim Huffman, an associate professor of medicine at Duke University School of Medicine who has studied calorie restriction in people. “You know, just slow the wheels down and the tires will last longer.”

Calorie restriction also forces the body to rely on fuel sources other than glucose, which aging experts think is beneficial for metabolic health and, ultimately, longevity. Several researchers pointed to a process known as autophagy , where the body eats up malfunctioning parts of cells and uses them for energy. This helps cells function better and lowers the risk of several age-related diseases.

In fact, scientists think that one of the main reasons calorie-restricted diets make mice live longer is because the animals don’t get sick as early, if at all, said Dr. Richard Miller, a professor of pathology at the University of Michigan.

There are a few notable exceptions to the findings around longevity and calorie restriction. Most striking was a study Dr. Nelson published in 2010 on mice that were genetically diverse. He found that some of the mice lived longer when they ate less, but a larger percentage actually had a shorter life span.

“That was kind of really unheard of,” Dr. Nelson said, noting that most papers on calorie restriction start out by saying: “‘Food restriction is the most robust, almost universal means of extending life span in species across the animal kingdom’ and blah, blah, blah.”

Other researchers have disputed the significance of Dr. Nelson’s findings. “People cite this study as though it were general evidence that caloric restriction only works a tiny portion, or some portion of the time,” Dr. Miller said. “But you can reach that conclusion only if you ignore 50 years of strong published evidence saying that it works almost all the time.”

Dr. Nelson’s study wasn’t the only one that didn’t find a universal longevity benefit with calorie restriction, though. For example, two studies conducted in monkeys for over 20 years, published in 2009 and 2012 , reported conflicting findings. Animals in both experiments showed some health benefits tied to caloric restriction, but only one group lived longer and had lower rates of age-related diseases, like cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

What does intermittent fasting have to do with it?

In the face of these mixed results, some researchers wonder if there may be another variable at play that is just as, or even more, important than the number of calories an animal eats: the window of time in which they eat them.

A key difference between the two monkey trials was that in the 2009 study, conducted at the University of Wisconsin, the calorie-restricted animals only received one meal a day and the researchers took away any leftover food in the late afternoon, so the animals were forced to fast for about 16 hours. In the 2012 study, run by the National Institute on Aging, the animals were fed twice a day and the food was left out overnight. The Wisconsin monkeys were the ones that lived longer.

A more recent study conducted in mice explicitly tested the effects of calorie restriction with and without intermittent fasting. Scientists gave the animals the same low-calorie diet, but some had access to the food for just two hours, others for 12 hours and another group for 24. Compared to a control group of mice that could graze on a full-calorie diet at any time, the low-calorie mice with 24-hour access lived 10 percent longer, while the low-calorie mice that ate within specific time windows had up to a 35 percent increase in life span.

Based on this collection of findings, Rafael de Cabo, a senior investigator at the N.I.A. who helped lead the monkey study there, now thinks that while calorie restriction is important for longevity, the amount of time spent eating — and not eating — every day is just as critical. And that might be the case not only for animals, but also for humans.

What does this mean for me?

It’s difficult to definitively answer whether intermittent fasting, calorie restriction or a combination of the two could cause people to live longer.

“I don’t think we have any evidence that it extends life span in humans,” Dr. Nelson said. That doesn’t mean it can’t work, he added, just that the evidence is “very hard to come by because it takes a lifetime to get that data.”

One clinical trial — named the Calerie study — attempted to answer this question by examining how cutting calories by 25 percent for two years affected a range of measurements related to aging. More than 100 healthy adults were advised on meal planning and given regular counseling sessions to help them reach their diet goals. But because it’s so difficult to reduce calories, participants were ultimately only able to reduce their intake by about 11 percent.

Compared to control participants, the dieters improved several aspects of their cardio-metabolic health, including blood pressure and insulin sensitivity, and they had lower levels of a few markers of inflammation.

The study also included three measures of “ biological age ,” comparing blood tests taken at the beginning and end of the two years. Two of the tests didn’t find an improvement in either group, but the third, which purports to measure how fast people age, did show a difference in the dieters. Calorie restriction “didn’t make people younger, but it made the rate at which they age slower,” said Dr. Huffman, who worked on the trial.

To Dr. Miller, the most significant conclusion from this study is that the 25 to 40 percent calorie restriction shown to be beneficial in animals is just not realistic in people. “Everything that could be accomplished to try to help them” cut calories was done for the participants, he said, and they still fell short of the goal of 25 percent.

Dr. de Cabo had a different take: “With only 11 percent calorie restriction that was achieved by the participants, they still show benefits,” he said.

Other research has focused on the short-term effects of intermittent fasting in people with a range of body mass indexes. Some studies , testing a variety of fasting schedules, showed improved metabolic health and reduced inflammation. But a trial of 116 people whose B.M.I. classified them as overweight or obese found no benefit among those who ate within an eight-hour window but didn’t reduce their calories, compared to a control group.

And to add a final twist, there is a notable body of evidence that appears to directly contradict the idea that calorie restriction or fasting, which typically leads to weight loss, extends human life span. Research consistently finds that people who are classified as overweight have a lower risk of death than those who are normal or underweight. One hypothesis is that people with the lowest B.M.I.s may be thin because they are older or have a chronic illness. Another is that people with higher B.M.I.s have more muscle, which weighs more than fat. But it’s also conceivable that, especially later in life, having greater body mass is actually protective, Dr. Huffman said.

Despite nearly a century of research, there’s still a ways to go before experts can say for certain whether the longevity benefits seen in animals will translate to humans. Some studies provide reason to believe that calorie restriction and intermittent fasting will help you live longer, and there are likely shorter-term benefits, particularly when it comes to heart and metabolic health. But it’s also possible that eating less might not do much more than leave you hungry.

Read by Dana G. Smith

Audio produced by Kate Winslett .

Dana G. Smith is a Times reporter covering personal health, particularly aging and brain health. More about Dana G. Smith

A Guide to Better Nutrition

A viral TikTok trend touts “Oatzempic,” a half cup of rolled oats with a cup of water and the juice of half a lime, as a weight-loss hack. We asked the experts if there’s anything to it .

How much salt is too much? Should I cut back? We asked experts these and other questions about sodium .

Patients were told for years that cutting calories would ease the symptoms of polycystic ovary syndrome. But research suggests dieting may not help at all .

We asked a nutrition expert how she keeps up healthy habits without stressing about food. Here are seven tips  she shared for maintaining that balance.

There are many people who want to lose a few pounds for whom weight loss drugs are not the right choice. Is old-fashioned dieting a good option ?

Read these books to shift into a healthier way of thinking about food .

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Living with 'Bio'

Quick summary.

The Greek root word bio means ‘life.’ Some common English vocabulary words that come from this root word include bio logical, bio graphy, and amphi bi an. One easy word that is helpful in remembering bio is bio logy, or the study of ‘life.’

The Greek root word bio means ‘life,’ and gives rise mostly to words from the realm of the ‘life’ sciences.

We’ve all taken bio logy (or bio ) classes, in which you learn all about ‘life.’ Bio logical processes have to do with the way ‘living’ organisms function. Micro bio logists study small ‘life’ forms, such as bacteria, viruses, and other one-celled organisms.

Speaking of life forms, amphi bi ans, such as frogs and salamanders, can ‘live’ both in water and on land. Amphi bio us military vehicles, such as tanks, can also operate or ‘live’ in both water and on land.

A bio graphy (or bio ) is a book that tells all about the events in someone’s ‘life,’ written by an author other than the subject of the ‘life’ history. An auto bio graphy, on the other hand, is a history of a person’s ‘life’ written by that person.

The adjective aero bi c refers to the oxygen a ‘life’ form requires in order to ‘live.’ Aero bi cs are simply exercises which cause ‘living’ organisms, such as yourself, to breathe faster as your body consumes more oxygen. Anaero bi c exercise almost completely depletes the oxygen from a ‘living’ organism’s body, such as an all-out sprint which leaves you gasping for air!

Sym bio tic organisms ‘live’ together, each needing the other to survive. An example of a mutually beneficial sym bio sis or ‘living’ together is between the clownfish and the anemone (think “Finding Nemo”). In this relationship which increases survival rates, the clownfish gets a protective home, and the anemone gets cleaned by the clownfish.

And just where can living organisms live and thrive? Why, in a bio sphere of course, or those parts of the Earth that support and allow the existence of ‘life.’

You can now add the knowledge of this handy root word bio to your, well, knowledge bio , which will hopefully make the rest of your vocabulary ‘life’ a bit more livable!

• biology : study of ‘life’
• microbiology : study of very small ‘life’ forms
• amphibian : ‘life’ living in water and on land
• biography : a ‘life’ history
• symbiosis : two ‘life’ forms living together
• aerobic : pertaining to air for ‘life’ to exist
• anaerobic : lacking air for ‘life’ to exist
• biosphere : part of the Earth where organisms ‘live’

Related Rootcasts

The fascinating parts of words.

Morphology is the study of how words are put together by using morphemes, which include prefixes, roots, and suffixes. Parsing the different morphemes in a word reveals meaning and part of speech. For instance, the word “invention” includes the prefix in- + the root vent + the suffix -ion , from which is formed the noun “invention.”

Etymology: Word Origins

Etymology is that part of linguistics that studies word origins. English vocabulary words are formed from many different sources, especially Latin and Greek. By determining the origins of the morphemes in English words, one is better able to remember and determine the dictionary definitions of words.

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Life Is a ‘Cabaret’: Bebe Neuwirth’s Latest Role Is a High-Stakes Broadway Homecoming

Bebe Neuwirth calls herself a “theater rat.”

So it’s natural she’d be sitting in an old-school New York diner on Eighth Avenue, on the edge of the Broadway district, right around the corner from where she’s in rehearsals for her latest show, “ Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club .” Less than two weeks from its April 21 opening, Neuwirth’s midday order is a simple one: English breakfast, hot and black. She doesn’t need the overflowing pile of creamer the waiter brings, but she’ll take that little dish for her teabag.

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“My agent was so apologetic about it, but I kept saying, ‘It’s fine, it’s absolutely fine,’” she says. “I like to audition.”

Smaller than you might imagine her, Neuwirth moves with the precise spatial awareness you’d expect of someone with a lifelong background in dance — instead of a handshake, for instance, she rises from her chair for a waggish curtsy — but that kind of grace feels so effortless on her you almost don’t notice. Sporting naturally graying shoulder-length hair and loose-fitting black clothing, she’s so comfortable and self-effacing it’s easy to forget that, along with being a theater rat, she’s also a big TV star, who earned fame with her peerless ability to deliver a punchline with a particularly sardonic flair.

“Bebe is an extraordinary technician, and that’s the highest compliment from me,” says the composer John Kander, who wrote “Cabaret” with his longtime partner, the late Fred Ebb. “Freddie and I always said that for people like us — the people who make stuff — instead of thinking of ourselves in highbrow ways, we really ought to think of ourselves as carpenters, as technicians, as professionals. Bebe has that in spades.”

That production turned an often-overlooked musical into a high-profile classic that has become the longest running Broadway revival in history. For several years, the actress returned regularly to the role of Velma, and then, as she got older, she stepped in as Roxie and then Mama Morton.

That’s just one facet of a long history in the theater that began when she was a teenager. Raised in Princeton, N.J., she started dancing at 6. When she was 13, a Broadway performance of “Pippin,” directed and choreographed by legend Bob Fosse and starring Ben Vereen, changed her life.

“I went with my first boyfriend, and we were up in the gods,” Neuwirth recalls, using theater slang for the cheap seats far back on the highest balcony. “I had no idea who Bob Fosse was, but I felt a deep longing for what those dancers were doing. I felt drawn to it almost physically. It was like recognizing myself.”

She spent a year at Juilliard before dropping out. “I didn’t want to go to college. I wanted to start dancing,” she says, and quickly scored her first professional job in “A Chorus Line.” She went on to appear in several dance-centric musicals, including “Sweet Charity,” in which she played Charity’s friend Nickie, the part that yielded her first Tony.

For TV viewers, Neuwirth is probably most recognizable as Dr. Lilith Sternin, the sitcom character she’s played on and off for 37 years, first on “Cheers” and then its spinoff “Frasier,” most recently revisiting the role just last year in the Paramount+ revival of the latter.

But back when the producers of “Cheers” called with that first offer to expand her role on the show, she almost didn’t accept it — because she worried that it might take her away from the theater.

“I didn’t want to do television,” she says. “But ‘Cheers’ was a great show.” She adds that Lilith, the uptight, socially awkward psychiatrist, offered a departure from the kinds of roles that had distinguished her career until then.

“Usually, and especially at the time, the leading lady in a musical is a soprano ingénue,” she says. “But she’s got a best friend who dances great, she sings great, she belts. And she’s tough as nails with a heart of gold. That was my part. That’s Nickie in ‘Sweet Charity.’ Lilith was so not that.”

Still, she hesitated. So she called four people for advice. Two of them were Broadway royalty: Fosse and his partner-muse, Gwen Verdon. (The other two were her parents, a mathematician and a painter.) Neuwirth had worked with Fosse and Verdon on “Sweet Charity.”

“They both reassured me,” she says. “Bob told me, ‘You’ll be like Jack Klugman! You’ll go off to do TV, and then you’ll come back to the theater.’”

Lilith has proven the most enduring success in a long, consistent career of Hollywood work, which has landed Neuwirth, 66, at a point in her life where she has the freedom to take a job only if she really wants to do it. “I’m very, very privileged and fortunate in that regard,” she says, adding with a twinkle, “At least, today it’s like that. Tomorrow, the pogrom. So who knows?”

That sly sense of humor is one of Neuwirth’s standout traits, according to her friends and colleagues. The director of “Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club,” Rebecca Frecknall, recalls a recent rehearsal under observation by a visiting journalist. Everyone in the room was on their best behavior. “Bebe came up to me with this cheeky smile and said very quietly, ‘What if I just cried out really loudly, “You want me to do what?!”’” Frecknall remembers with a laugh. “She has this incredible way of undercutting a moment in a really funny way.”

The stakes are high for this “Cabaret,” which arrives as one of the most hotly anticipated shows of the season. The ambitious production with a reported $24 million price tag has radically transformed the August Wilson Theatre into an in-the-round performance space with cabaret tables, balconies on two sides and luxe concessions. The production’s 2021 premiere on the West End won seven Olivier Awards including one for Eddie Redmayne, now reprising his part on Broadway.

To the role of Fräulein Schneider, Neuwirth brings both a world-weary resolve and furtive hopefulness. She’s proud to have survived all that she has, but still carries the quiet regret for the sacrifices she’s had to make along the way. At a pivotal moment in the play, she has to decide whether or not to make one last terrible sacrifice. “You have to really believe that this is someone who’s a survivor and fighter, and I feel like Bebe herself carries that with her,” Frecknall says.

Although so much of Neuwirth’s stage work has taken advantage of her movement background, she dances very little in “Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club.” As a hoofer who danced through two hip replacements over the years, she’s not doing much dancing at all these days.

“I wiggle a lot,” she says with a smile. “But I don’t dance with the athleticism that I did before. I do think that a lifetime of dance, in a body, is a beautiful thing to watch, even with subtle, smaller movements. I like to say that even if I’m not dancing, that doesn’t mean I’m not dancing, because I’m feeling it in a very physical way.”

Looking past the opening of “Cabaret” and the flurry of awards season in May and June, Neuwirth doesn’t know what’s next after her stint in the show ends. Whatever the future holds, though, she knows theater will be in the mix.

“It was Martin Charnin who first called me a theater rat,” she says, mentioning the Broadway veteran who wrote the lyrics to “Annie” and directed the original production. “Those are the smells that I’m comfortable with, and that’s the animal I am.”

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biology (n.)

"the science of life and living things," 1819, from Greek bios "life, one's life, lifetime" (from PIE root *gwei- "to live;" see bio- ) + -logy "study of." The compound was suggested 1802 by German naturalist Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus, and introduced as a scientific term that year in French by Lamarck; the two seem to have hit upon the word independently.

Entries linking to biology

1903, from French astrobiologie ; see astro- "star" + biology . Related: Astrobiological ; astrobiologist .

"pertaining to the science of life," 1840, from biology + -ical . Biological clock , "innate mechanism that regulates cyclic activities of living things," is attested from 1955; not especially of human reproductive urges until c. 1991. Biological warfare is attested from 1946. Related: Biologically . Alternative adjective biologic is from 1850.

• microbiology
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updated on October 10, 2022

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