Definition of "inorganic" []

• Involving neither organic life nor the products of organic life. (adjective)
• Not composed of organic matter. (adjective)
• Chemistry Of or relating to compounds not containing hydrocarbon groups. (adjective)
• Not arising in normal growth; artificial. (adjective)
• Lacking system or structure. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Were not man's origin implicated, we should accept without a murmur the derivation of animal and vegetable life from what we call inorganic nature."
• "Incipient life, as it were, manifests itself throughout the whole of what we call inorganic nature."
• "Progress slowed during the second of half of the 19th century, although critical advances in inorganic and organic chemistry helped to usher in a new era for physiological chemistry."