Organism Function
digestion Audio
di·ges·tion [ dih-jes-chuhn, dahy- ]
Subclass of:
Digestive System Physiological Phenomena; Nutritional Physiological Phenomena
Definitions related to digestion:
  • Process of breakdown of food for metabolism and use by the body.
    CRISP Thesaurus
    National Institutes of Health, 2006
  • The process of breakdown of food for metabolism and use by the body.
    NLM Medical Subject Headings
    U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2021
  • The process of breaking down food into substances the body can use for energy, tissue growth, and repair.
    NCI Dictionary of Cancer Terms
    U.S. National Cancer Institute, 2021
  • The process or act of converting food into chemical substances that can be absorbed and assimilated.
    NCI Thesaurus
    U.S. National Cancer Institute, 2021
  • The whole of the physical, chemical, and biochemical processes carried out by multicellular organisms to break down ingested nutrients into components that may be easily absorbed and directed into metabolism.
    Gene Ontology Dictionary
    Gene Ontology Consortium, 2021
  • Digestion, sequence by which food is broken down and chemically converted so that it can be absorbed by the cells of an organism and used to maintain vital bodily functions. This article summarizes the chemical actions of the digestive process. For details on the anatomy and physiology for specific...
    Encyclopedia Britannica
    Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 2020
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