There is a term for the balanced percentage level of salt in the body, but I can’t remember what it is. It is not eutectic, but it is a word like that. The X level of salts in the human body is 0.9%. Answer The term is isotonic. Denoting or relating to a solution having … Read more
The term Citrus Fruit covers oranges, lemons, and grapefruits; all of which are very similar in skin & flesh. Is there a similar term to cover apples and pears (outside of Cockney rhyming slang)? I realise that Citrus comes from biological classification (i.e. it’s the common genus of these fruits: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citrus). Whilst apples and pears … Read more
I’m looking for a word that fills in the missing blank in the following progression: Arms and legs are collectively called extremities Hands and feet are collectively called _______ Fingers and Toes are collectively called digits The word “extremities” can be used to mean just the hands and feet (as in this related question), but … Read more
I’ve been trying to find scientific research concerning animals’ tendency to adhere to certain worn paths, or “game trails”. However, I have found very little and suspect the problem to be that a different, more scientific word is usually used instead. A “game trail” is a clear path in a forest lacking substantial undergrowth due … Read more
I was surprised to find that there’s a growing convention of capitalizing the word "black" when referring to the race, i.e.: A Black person. I thought this was wrong, because I thought it was only proper nouns, like cultures, nationalities and ethnicities, that were to be capitalized. Black denotes a race, and nothing more, as … Read more
I have read this answer on the question “Why is the word “pepper” used for both capsicum (e.g. bell pepper) and piper (e.g. black pepper)?“, and it contains some useful etymological information. I’ve noticed that what name we call Capsicum annuum by seems to depend on which country we are speaking English in. For example, … Read more
The Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) and White Admiral (Limenitis camilla) butterfly species cannot have had those common names before 1627, when the English Navy (the predecessor of the Royal Navy) was first divided into red, white and blue squadrons and admirals began to be referred to by the colour of their squadron. Those butterflies could … Read more
I am working on a project which includes information about plants and fungi. It would be very helpful for me if there a word that means plants-and-fungi, but I’m not sure there is. "Flora" only includes plants, but "biota" includes animals. Answer It seems that the answer is "no", however "flora" is probably the best … Read more
I originally asked this on the Biology site, but someone pointed me towards this site in their answer for a full-on word request stating this site might be more helpful in that regard. I was talking in an SE chatroom about fingers, and not being a native English speaker, I had to look up the … Read more
We can speak of “microbes” or “micro-organisms,” and I used to think that these terms clearly included viruses. And they are used this way by at least some other people; here’s a website that refers to viruses as a category of microbe. However, I recently discovered that these terms are usually defined as referring to … Read more
