The Word of the Day for June 26th.
Today's word is symbiosis, also pronounced symbiosis, and spelled S-Y-M-B-I-O-S-I-S.
Symbiosis is a noun.
It's a formal word that refers to a relationship between two people or groups that work with and depend on each other.
In biology, symbiosis refers to the relationship between two different kinds of living things
that live together and depend on each other.
Here's the word used in a sentence from Variety.
In the old days, which weren't that long ago, there was that ritual moment
when a rock and roll idol in the midst of delivering a classic anthem would point the mic away from himself
and into the arena, indicating that it was time for the audience to take over and sing the lines.
It might be Springsteen doing Thunder Road or Madonna doing Holiday.
The loving symbiosis of pop star and pop audience doesn't get much more reverent than that.
Symbiosis was adopted by the scientific community in the late 1800s,
coming ultimately via German from the Greek word symbiosis, meaning living together or companionship.
Of course, there are a lot of ways to live together and, accordingly, several flavors of symbiosis.
When a biological symbiosis between two organisms is mutually beneficial, it's termed mutualism.
For example, oxpeckers are birds so named because they peck ticks off of infested cattle
and wild mammals, a likely satisfying arrangement for both parties, and textbook mutualism.
When one organism lives off another at the other's expense,
however, as for one icky instance, headlice do, it's called parasitism.