biodiversity
noun
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Biodiversity may become the rallying call for the next decade, wrote David Wake in the journal Science in 1989. Indeed, biodiversity is a word you're likely to encounter in writing about ecology and the environment today. But when Wake used it, "biodiversity" was still a relatively new addition to the English language, having first appeared in writing in the mid-1980s. Of course, the roots of biodiversity are much older. It evolved from a commingling of the descendants of the Greek noun bios, which means "mode of life," and the Latin verb divertere, which means "to turn aside" or "to go different ways."
Examples of biodiversity in a Sentence
Felicia Jackson, Forbes.com, 4 June 2025
With so much of Earth’s biodiversity yet to be discovered and named, remember that names are just names.
—Nicholas Green, The Conversation, 3 June 2025
And not only is the conversion of natural land into farmland and rangeland the leading driver of deforestation; agriculture is responsible for much of the world’s water shortages, water pollution, wetland destruction, and biodiversity loss.
—Michael Grunwald, The Atlantic, 3 June 2025
Meghalaya is part of the Indo-Myanmar biodiversity hotspot, and the region holds a large number of endemic species, or species found nowhere else in the world, according to the study.
—Lauren Liebhaber, Miami Herald, 30 May 2025
See All Example Sentences for biodiversity
Cite this Entry
“Biodiversity.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/biodiversity. Accessed 9 Jun. 2025.
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biodiversity
noun
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