Microorganisms/micro organisms/micro-organisms

[Guest as1232004]

Which one is right? three dictionaries have told me differently.

1: Microorganisms

2: Micro organisms

3: Micro-organisms

[Ophiolite]

Webster's goes with microorganisms, The Oxford English favours microorganisms, though their on-line (now is that on line, online or on-line?) dictionary offers micro-organisms as an option. I would look no further than these two, therefore, I would use microorganism. Note that the option with the hyphen would not be wrong, just outdated.

 

Micro organisms is wrong. If you were to use this you would be talking about very small organisms, but not microorganisms. For reasons of clarity, therefore, this would be an unwelcome construction. i.e. never use it.

 

I haven't checked development in this case, but the normal pattern is to begin by hyphenating the word, then, after it has become common currency, to omit the hyphen. This transition appears to be almost complete for microorganism.

[Guest as1232004]

I have used microorganisms. microsoft word's spell checker said it was wrong, but I ignored it. Thanks Ophiolite.