coli
- 1A Gram-negative bacterium, Escherichia coli, commonly found in the lower intestine of warm-blooded animals.
Researchers cultured E. coli from the patient's stool sample.
Most strains of E. coli are harmless, but a few cause severe food poisoning.
Similarcolibacillus
Note
A leftover from older taxonomy: bacteriologists once named the species Bacterium coli or Bacillus coli, and the clipped second half outlived the renaming to Escherichia coli. Coli is Latin for "of the colon," the genitive of colon. The word often stands before another noun, and its plural is unchanged: Thomas T. Mackie in 1939 writes of "three of the coli." Colibacillus names the same organism.
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Origin
This is a shortened form of Bacterium coli or Bacillus coli, obsolete scientific names for the species now called Escherichia coli. The word itself comes from Latin colī, the genitive of colon, meaning "colon" or "large intestine".