free living

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Scientists have identified around 400 species of free-living amoebae, but only six are known to cause disease in humans - including Naegleria fowleri and Acanthamoeba, both of which can infect the brain.

From BBC • Sep. 17, 2025

It’s also a parasite — because who needs to be free-living when you’re this fabulous?

From Salon • May 27, 2025

"It opens the door to experimentally manipulate the demographic or genetic composition of free-living populations to ask questions about how realistic natural social environments affect health, fitness and life outcomes for individuals," Sheehan said.

From Science Daily • Feb. 14, 2024

And most recently, some of those species again traded their ability to make silk for a free-living, clinging life in these faster waters.

From Science Magazine • Jan. 12, 2024

They are much less closely related to me than to each other and to the free-living bacteria out under the hill.

From "The Lives of a Cell" by Lewis Thomas