Bacteria are tiny, single-celled living things that can only be seen with a microscope. Some bacteria cause disease, but many others help with digestion, decomposition, and making foods like yogurt.
From New Latin “bacterium,” from Greek “bakterion,” meaning “little staff” or “small rod,” because early bacteria were rod-shaped under the microscope. The plural form “bacteria” became the common everyday word.
Your body actually contains more bacterial cells than human cells, so you’re partly a walking bacteria hotel. The word that once meant “tiny rods” now names a whole hidden world that keeps you alive.
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