habitat
n.-
1 natural home of a species (n.) B2 Upper Intermediate Sciencethe natural environment where a particular plant or animal usually lives.
the natural home or environment of an animal, plant, or other organism. Countable in most biological contexts.
ExampleThe tropical rainforest is the natural habitat of many colourful birds.
ExampleThe destruction of the coastal wetlands has led to a significant loss of habitat for several endangered species of migratory birds.
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2 human dwelling (n.) C1 Advanced Formala place where people live, especially one designed for a specific purpose.
a place of habitation for humans; often used in urban planning or sociology to describe living environments.
ExampleThe architect wanted to create a modern habitat that felt connected to nature.
ExampleThe conference focused on creating sustainable urban habitats that could accommodate the rapid influx of residents from rural areas.
From Latin habitat (“it dwells, lives”), the 3rd person singular present active indicative form of habitō (“I live or dwell”). In Linnaeus and similar authors, the geographical ranges of species were customarily denoted in Latin by a sentence beginning with "Habitat", e.g. "Habitat in Europa" ("It lives in Europe"), and it thus became the convention to refer to the geographical range as the "habitat". Compare the English derivations of exit, floruit, ignoramus, and tenet from Latin finite verbs reanalyzed as English nouns.