psychrotrophic

English

Etymology

From psychro- (“cold”) +‎ -trophic (“growth”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌsaɪkɹəˈtɹəʊfɪk/

Adjective

psychrotrophic (comparative more psychrotrophic, superlative most psychrotrophic)

1. (biology) Describing microorganisms that thrive in a cold environment.
   • 2018 January 15, Kaarin Goodburn, “How chilled is your fridge?”, in Food Standards Agency‎^[1]:

     One of the main reasons fridge temperatures are recommend to be set at 5ºC is because of listeria. Listeria is a food poisoning bacterium that is psychrotrophic – in other words it likes cold temperatures. From the growth models, we know that listeria grows nearly twice as fast at 8°C as it does at 5°C, hence the recommended 5ºC, which helps keep us safe from listeria.

Related terms

• psychrotroph

Translations

biology: describing microorganisms that thrive in a cold environment

• Finnish: psykrotrofinen, viileähakuinen
• Irish: sícreatrófach
• Italian: psicrotrofico