physiological

adjective

Simple meaning

Related to pertaining to biology or to life and living things.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

fihzeeuhlahjihkuhl

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IPA pronunciation (US)

fɪziəˈlɑdʒɪkəl

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

Of or relating to the biological study of physiology
Relating to the action of a drug when given to a healthy person, as distinguished from its therapeutic action.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty: B2 · Upper Intermediate
Frequency: Moderately Common
Typical Use: Academic

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

This meaning: Of or relating to the biological study of physiology

Used this way, physiological is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a clinical use: it belongs to medical description, where it is factual rather than emotive.

Emotional tone: Neutral
Formality: Specialist/technical
Intensity: Not strongly marked
How common: Specialized
Connotation: Clinical and technical
Usage feel: Technical and specialized

Where it naturally appears

Medicine/healthcare
Science
Technical/specialist writing

Usage note

In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use physiological

“Physiological psychology.”adjective

Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

physiological psychologyphysiological conditionsphysiological statephysiological effectsphysiological basisphysiological responsephysiological actionphysiological function

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

physiologynounScientific field · specialist
The branch of the biological sciences dealing with the functioning of organisms.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

physiological anatomynounCompound term
The study of anatomy in its relation to function.
physiological conditionnounCompound term
The condition or state of the body or bodily functions.
physiological jaundice of the newbornnounCompound term
Yellowish appearance in newborn infants.
physiological nystagmusnounCompound term
Small involuntary tremors of the eyeballs.
physiological propertynounCompound term
A property having to do with the functioning of the body.
physiological psychologynounCompound term
The branch of psychology that is concerned with the physiological bases of psychological processes.

Related Words

Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.