Aerobic

How to spell aerobic

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce aerobic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does aerobic mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to or requiring oxygen, especially exercise that increases the body's use of oxygen and strengthens the heart and lungs.

Aerobic in a sentence

• The gym offers a morning aerobic class that mixes jogging and skipping.

• Regular aerobic exercise can lower resting heart rate over several weeks.

Where does aerobic come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word goes back to two Greek roots: aer, meaning 'air', and bios, meaning 'life'. It was coined in French as aerobie by the chemist Louis Pasteur in the early 1860s to describe microbes that need oxygen from the air to survive, in contrast to the anaerobie organisms that thrive without it. English adopted the adjective aerobic later in the nineteenth century, at first strictly as a term in biology and microbiology. The familiar fitness sense, exercise that raises the heart rate and improves the body's use of oxygen, grew popular in the 1960s and 1970s, and the noun aerobics followed soon after. The spelling trap lives at the front: the 'aero' opening packs three vowels together, and writers often drop the second one or swap the order, even though it simply spells out the Greek word for air.

How the word is built

• aero- (air)
• bio- (from Greek bios: life)
• -ic (adjective suffix)