biolysisn.
/bʌɪˈɒlᵻsɪs/, U.S. /baɪˈɑləsəs/ΚΠ
1849 J. Pereira Elements Materia Medica (ed. 3) I. 95 They produce at the same time morpholysis and biolysis; that is, they destroy both organisation and life.
1849 J. Pereira Elements Materia Medica (ed. 3) I. 465 The part dies (biolysis) and the tissues are speedily dissolved (morpholysis).
2. The chemical decomposition of organic matter by the action of bacteria, esp. as used in the treatment of sewage.
ΘΚΠ
the world > matter > condition of matter > bad condition of matter > [noun] > decomposition, melting, or crumbling away
dissolutiona1398
resolution1533
mouldering1562
dissipation1597
deordination1686
decomposition1777
disintegration1794
chemolysis1872
biolysis1897
biodegradation1941
breakdown1959
biodeterioration1960
1897 W. D. Scott-Moncrieff in Profess. Papers Corps Royal Engineers 23 214 It seemed impossible to suppose that the whole of this [sewage] could be subjected to the elaborate process of chemical disruption, to which I gave the name of biolysis, by organisms which, in their simplest forms, would require to number 25,000 to make up a procession one inch in length.
1922 H. E. Babbitt Sewerage & Sewage Treatm. xii. 366 The biolysis of sewage is the term applied to the changes through which its organic constituents pass due to the metabolism of bacterial life.
1980 Chemosphere 9 399 Hydrolysis was generally too slow to compete with biolysis.
2005 U.S. Patent 6,890,439 1 The surface layer of the bed is by far the most biologically active and diverse zone where the most rapid biolysis takes place.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, November 2010; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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n.1849