a taxonomic kingdom of prokaryotic organisms that typically reproduce by asexual budding or fission and have a nutritional mode of absorption, photosynthesis, or chemosynthesis, comprising the bacteria, blue-green algae, and various primitivepathogens
Word origin
[‹ NL (1869), pl. of monēron, coinage based on Gk mone᷄rēs solitary, single, deriv. of mónos alone, only]