organic
Noun pluralorganics
Pluralorganics
- 1Grown in an environment free from artificial agrichemicals, and sometimes certified by a regulatory body.
The market only stocks organic produce certified by a national agency.
Many shoppers pay more for organic vegetables grown without synthetic pesticides.
Oppositeconventional, nonorganic
Note
Here the word works as a label as much as a description. In many jurisdictions produce may be called organic only after an accredited body certifies that synthetic pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers were kept out. On packaging it can carry that legal weight. Certified organic is the clearer phrase when the certification itself is the point, as opposed to a loose claim about how something was grown.
- 2Having to do with living organisms or produced by them.
Decomposers break down organic matter and return nutrients to the soil.
Scientists tested the rock for traces of organic molecules.
Similarbiological, living, natural
Oppositeinorganic
Note
The word's broadest scientific use came down through Middle English organic and Old French organique from Latin organicus. In biology it points to origin rather than composition: tissues, secretions and remains produced by plant, animal or microbial life all count. That is how it differs from the chemist's carbon sense. Biology asks where a substance came from, while chemistry asks what it is built of.
- 3Relating to carbon compounds, or to substances produced by living things.
Chemists classify benzene as an organic compound.
The lab studies organic reactions involving long carbon chains.
Oppositeinorganic
Note
The chemist's sense is about composition, not origin. An organic compound is built on carbon, typically with carbon–hydrogen bonds, whether it came from a leaf or a laboratory flask. A few simple carbon species, such as carbonates and oxides, are conventionally left out. It is the adjective in organic chemistry, and the noun an organic is simply this sense turned into a thing.
- 4Developing in a gradual, natural way rather than being forced or planned.
The band's sound evolved in an organic fashion across their albums.
Her career followed an organic path, each step leading naturally to the next.
Similarnatural, gradual, unforced, spontaneous
Oppositeforced, artificial, contrived
- 5A food produced without artificial agrichemicals.
The store groups its organics near the entrance.
An organic generally costs more than its conventionally grown counterpart.
- 6A carbon-based chemical compound, of the kind studied in organic chemistry.
The reaction produces a new organic with a longer carbon chain.
Chemists separated the organics from the inorganic salts.
Oppositeinorganic
Note
Laboratory shorthand, most at home in the plural. Organics are the organic compounds in a sample taken together as a group, usually set against the inorganic material around them. The singular is rarer and sounds clipped. What counts as one, and what is left out, is settled by the chemist's adjective, so the noun inherits its boundaries rather than drawing new ones.
- 7Produced by a search engine's ranking algorithms rather than through paid promotion.
The page rose to the top of the organic listings after months of good content.
Marketers track organic clicks separately from paid ones.
Oppositepaid
Note
Marketing borrowed the word to mean earned rather than bought. Organic results are the ones a search engine ranks on relevance, won through content and inbound links instead of advertising spend. Michael Masterson and MaryEllen Tribby, citing Jupiter Research, put organic results at the center of how users find information. Inorganic is the formal opposite, but in practice the contrast is usually drawn with paid.
- 8Forming a harmonious, coherent whole in which the parts fit together naturally.
The novel has an organic structure where every chapter supports the whole.
Their designs feel organic, with each element flowing into the next.
Similarcoherent, integrated, unified, harmonious
Oppositedisjointed, fragmented, incoherent
- 9Relating to an organ of the body of a living thing.
Tests ruled out any organic disease in the patient's liver.
The symptoms pointed to an organic problem rather than stress.
Similarphysical, physiological
Oppositefunctional, psychological
Note
In the clinic the word draws a working line. An organic disorder has a physical cause in an organ, while a functional one produces symptoms with no detectable structural change. Doctors speak of ruling out organic disease before looking for other explanations. Organic versus functional is the pairing to remember, and it is the sense to reach for when a medical text asks whether something is really wrong with the body itself.
- 10A living organism, in contrast to a robot or hologram.
The crew's lone organic needed food and sleep, unlike the androids.
Holograms guided the organics through the alien city.
Note
Science fiction lets the word look at life from the machine's side of the line. Calling someone an organic marks them off from robots, androids and holograms, and the term can carry a chill. The line "Pitiful organics" in the video game Stellaris (2016) shows how easily it turns dismissive. Outside the genre the noun sounds odd, but within it the word is ordinary.
Less common meanings
- 11Of a military unit or its parts, belonging permanently to an organization rather than being temporarily attached.
The brigade relied on its organic artillery rather than borrowed batteries.
Engineers were organic to the division and deployed with it permanently.
Oppositeattached
Note
Military planners use the word as a term of record. An organic asset appears in a unit's own table of organization, while an attached one is lent for an operation. It stands before the noun, as in the U.S. War Department's 1945 Handbook on German Military Forces with its "organic reconnaissance battalion." Eyal Ben-Ari adds a social side: such units tend toward cohesion and a shared past.
- 12Acting as an instrument of nature or of art toward some intended function or purpose.
The poet treated the eye and ear as organic powers, each shaped for its appointed task.
In his view, every limb is organic, fitted by nature to a particular end.
Note
An older philosophical sense, where the word means serving as a tool rather than being alive. Milton's Of Education (1644) praises "those organic arts which enable men to discourse and write perspicuously." These are arts valued as means to something further. Reading it as "natural" or "biological" misreads such passages, so in older texts ask what the thing is for.
- 13Describing a form of social solidarity, theorized by Emile Durkheim, based on voluntary, interdependent relationships for mutual benefit rather than on inherited ties like family.
Durkheim saw organic solidarity emerging as labor became more specialized.
Industrial societies tend toward organic forms of solidarity rather than kinship-based ones.
Oppositemechanical
Note
Durkheim's term rarely appears outside the phrase organic solidarity, and it is almost always set against its rival, mechanical solidarity. The image is of a body whose organs differ and depend on one another. Cohesion comes from specialized roles and agreements, not from shared kinship or tradition. Newcomers are often surprised by the direction of the metaphor: it is modern, contractual society that counts as organic.
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Origin
From Middle English organic, from Old French organique, from Latin organicus.