Table 2.

“Glossary of terms used to describe the 3 major physiological states defined herein” (cited from[3])

Physiological state	Phenotype
Viable	Capable of division; will form a colony on an agar plate.
Vital or dormant	Unable to divide or to form a colony on an agar plate without a preceding resuscitation phase.
Non-viable	Incapable of division; will not form a colony on an agar plate under any tested condition.

We use the phrases ‘starvation’ or ‘starving cells’ to refer to the environmental conditions under which cells are incubated, rather than to a physiological state. Thus starved cells (or cells that have suffered other stresses) may or may not be dormant. Despite historical usage of these terms, the phrases ‘direct viable count’ and ‘viable-but-non-culturable’ are misnomers, since such cells are not viable as defined above.