- 1
To metabolize something is to change it inside the body through those chemical processes: food into energy and new cell material, or a medicine into forms the body can use or get rid of. Doctors often say a drug is metabolized by the liver. Living things metabolize, not only humans — a plant metabolizes what it takes in, too. It is a formal science verb. In everyday English people more often say “the body breaks it down” or “the body uses it.” British spelling is often metabolise; American spelling is metabolize. Same word.
代謝（體內把食物或藥物轉成能量、養分或排出）
組成From Ancient Greek metabolḗ (“change, mutation”) + -ize (to make / to do).
同家族的字
- metabolismthe name of the process
- metabolicthe adjective for that process
原始詞典資料4 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
metabolizeverb/mɪˈtæbəˌlaɪz/
- 1
biologynatural-sciencesTo undergo metabolism.
- 2
biologynatural-sciencesTo cause a substance to undergo metabolism.
- Among the many types of juice, grapefruit stands out from the pack because it changes the way some people absorb and metabolize different drugs.
- The genes in question encode two enzymes that metabolize alcohol and its breakdown products; the two enzymes are known as alcohol dehydrogenase and aldehyde dehydrogenase.
- 3
biologynatural-sciencesTo produce a substance using metabolism.
- 4
To absorb and process as if by metabolism.
- We believe this to be the true way to teach zoölogy, for we doubt the value to a man of a mass of indefinite ill-digested text-book information. Occasionally an omnivore can take in every thing, and digest and so metabolize it as to organize it into healthy mental tissue. They are, however, the few.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。