Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To collect plants for scientific study.
- v. To investigate or study plants scientifically.
- v. To investigate or explore the plant life of (a region).
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To examine or seek for plants for the purpose of studying and classifying them, etc.; investigate the vegetable kingdom as a botanist.
- To explore botanically: as, to botanize a neighborhood.
- Also spelled botanise.
Wiktionary
- v. To do the work of a botanist; as to inventory the plant life in an area.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To seek after plants for botanical investigation; to study plants.
- v. To explore for botanical purposes.
WordNet 3.0
- v. collect and study plants
Etymologies
- From botany + -ize. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“As a young professor in Uppsala, Linnaeus led his students on plant-collecting hikes, scattering them into the fields to botanize and summoning them to lunch with a trumpet.”
“George Crabbe used to go there and botanize, and lick the wounds inflicted by the scornful, bullying fishermen of Aldeburgh, who, having known him as a boy, scrubbing out barrels in the town, despised him, first as a doctor and later as their curate.”
“About the same time, Mr. Sparrman, who had imprudently gone out alone to botanize, was assaulted by two men, who stripped him of every thing which he had about him, excepting his trowsers, and struck him again and again with his own hanger, though happily without doing him any harm.”
Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, Performed by Captain James Cook
“While Vinton and his crew began clearing the dense secondary forest, Schultes finally had an opportunity to botanize.”
“Though the rain that had followed us from Pasto increased from a drizzle to a downpour, Tim insisted it was an ideal time to botanize.”
“Thus for the time being Schultes remained content to botanize in the hills around Huautla, focusing more on the plants than the people.”
“The grandees of the party followed the Bolivians, whose specialty entitled them to control practically the direction of the route, and plunged into the woods to botanize, to explore and to search for game.”
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 11, No. 23, February, 1873
“Mariposa, for we stopped here and there to sketch, "peep, and botanize"; besides, we were dragging with us a Jersey wagon, bought second-hand in”
“At times we went across the bay, in various directions, but oftenest we strove through the sand to the ocean beach, stopping here and there to botanize, and gather the sweet yellow and purple lupin, and to rest on the limbs of the scrub-oaks.”
“And De Sauty shall spare them, though he botanize on his mother's grave.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘botanize’.
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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The Aubrey/Maturin List I'm Gonna Mak...
I'm wading through Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels one by one, and someday, I'll wade through them again and list all the words I learned while reading them.
Edit: I started ma...studdingsail, carronade, mumchance, grumlin-futtocks, crosscat-harpings, holystone, sennit, orlop, orchitis, negus, kevel, altumal and 1112 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for botanize.
chained_bear "'...we spent the day botanizing. We were also unperceived.'
"'How we botanized! Do you think we shall reach Bir Hafsa tomorrow?'
"'Which as Bir Hafsa?'
"'The resting-place where there was such a fine stretch of centaurea for the camels and where we found the curious euphorbia among the dunes.'
"'And the spiny lizards, the crested desert-lark, the anomalous wheatear. Perhaps we may: I hope so, indeed.'"
--Patrick O'Brian, Treason's Harbour, 219 Feb 19, 2008