Glossary
Microbiologist Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential microbiologist terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key microbiologist vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in microbiologist training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Antibiotic resistance
- Microbes surviving drugs.
- Bioburden
- Microbes on a product.
- Biofilm
- A layer of microbes.
- BSL
- Biosafety level.
- CFU
- Colony-forming unit.
- Clean room
- A controlled environment.
- Culture
- Growing microbes.
- Endotoxin
- A bacterial toxin.
- Gram stain
- A stain that classifies bacteria.
- Incubation
- Holding at set temperature.
- Isolate
- A pure culture.
- Media
- Nutrients for growth.
- MIC
- Minimum inhibitory concentration.
- Pathogen
- A disease-causing organism.
- Sterility test
- Testing for any microbes.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Microbiologist practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Microbiologist training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.