Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A leaflike or scalelike plant part, usually small, sometimes showy or brightly colored, and located just below a flower, a flower stalk, or an inflorescence.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In botany, a leaf in a flower-cluster or subtending a flower, usually differing somewhat from an ordinary leaf in size, form, or texture, often much reduced, and sometimes petaloid, highly colored, and very conspicuous.
- n. In zoology, a part of a hydrozoan likened to a bract of a plant; a hydrophyllium. See cuts under Athorybia and hydrophyllium.
- n. A thin plate of metal used as an ornament, as, for example, one of the gold disk-like ornaments made in Scandinavian countries in the Viking age.
- n. The oval distal exite on the appendages of certain segments of phyllopod crustaceans, as Apus, probably serving a respiratory function.
Wiktionary
- n. botany A leaf or leaf-like structure from the axil of which a the stalk of a flower or an inflorescence arises.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A leaf, usually smaller than the true leaves of a plant, from the axil of which a flower stalk arises.
- n. Any modified leaf, or scale, on a flower stalk or at the base of a flower.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a modified leaf or leaflike part just below and protecting an inflorescence
Etymologies
- From Latin bractea, gold leaf, perhaps from Greek brakhein, to rattle. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“A bract is a modified leaf at the base of a flower, and is often more showy than the flower itself - the red bracts of poinsettias are another example.”
“Photographed in Mexico, the fishpole heliconia has bract clusters that dangle.”
“Some varieties, such as the fishpole heliconia, have bract clusters that dangle.”
Coffee, swamp lily and heliconia: ornamental plants and flowers of tropical Mexico
“For example, in “Marble Bubble Bobble,” Scott develops the impressionistic swerve of “Umbra marbles drench the ravine slot, divot light, a barreled birch grasps citrus palm as pumice, as coastal groove hulls plunge pool, the cervical troll, pawpaw bract.””
“In the plant, the eye or germinative point opens to a leaf, then to another leaf, with a power of transforming the leaf into radicle, stamen, pistil, petal, bract, sepal, or seed.”
“In that plan, I raised tobacco taxes, I raise alcohol taxes, I raise the upper income tax bract on the largest and the highest 4 percent of all Californians.”
“Bracteoles Small, usually scale-like bracts on or close to the calyx of a flower, above the bract.”
“In one short-season variety, some farmers are selecting for tough outer glumes (the papery coat or bract around the seed) and long awns (the hair-like bristle growing out from the glume) which help protect the grains from birds, a major pest of early rice.”
“The fibrous inner bract is made into fiber for bags, mats, hats, and other personal articles.”
“The stems are square and tender at first, but afterwards become round and woody; the leaves are opposite, small, narrow, with six or eight bract-like leaves at the same joint; the flowers are blue, in terminal spikes; seeds small, black, oblong.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘bract’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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A Galimafrée of Plant Anatomy & Morph...
A hodgepodge, jumble, jambalaya, *gallimaufry, circus and tent revival of plant anatomy and morphology terms and phrases - its a big tent, and no tickets are required.
*array, collecti...naked bud, leaf blade, brochidodromous, serrate, cork cambium, rhizomatous, flower stalk, deciduous sepal, petal, whorl, nectar gland, stamen and 1348 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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Words beginning with B
birefringence, bureau, blot, barter, beyond, blunder, byre, byrgius, bowl, baste, bastardsawed, bastel house and 44 more...
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Unusual words for Words With Friends
A list of words that WWF recognizes as valid - most are unusual words; some are simply high-scoring.
botel, slipe, jeu, chub, chubs, cote, mure, tittle, dev, loo, hoke, helo and 357 more...
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Words For Novel (Part 3)
fibers, gypsy, polymer, schism, syphilitic garden..., holocaust, scrutinant, contemplate, aftermath, consequence, deadlock, impasse and 154 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, B
bloviate, bejesus, brouhaha, behoove, bodacious, bamboozle, banshee, bub, bolus, blob, bubbly, bleb and 414 more...
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TheLastGoodNameLeft
The Last Good Words Left
ephemera, gammon, errata, ellipses, octopi, heteronormative, polyp, intersectionality, theses, california, halfback, fullback and 555 more...
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learning
A list of words whose meanings I am learning, either because a) I don't know the meaning b) I know the meaning, but could stand to better appreciate certain inflections or secondary meanings or c) ...
louche, educe, loam, cob, sclerotic, palliate, axial, syndicalist, ecumenical, sally, fatuous, parvenu and 1381 more...
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Words Covered in Faery Dust (B)
words that evoke magic, mystery, mayhem, magnificence or anything else that glimmers in the grass
balcony, bailey, baguette, bairn, balalaika, baldric, balefire, baby's breath, ballet, balm of gilead, balsam, baluster and 188 more...
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ramages
names of trees and bushes and other asundry items that name branching
juniper, pinon, tamarind, ponderosa pine, douglas fir, locust, sycamore, cottonwood, mountain mahogany, blue spruce, cedar, aspen and 76 more...
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Forest For The Trees
Words to describe forests, tree parts & tree culture.
petiole, deciduous, phytoremediation, riparian zone, scion, xeriscape, samara, freestone, clingstone, blowdown, butt log, sylvan and 49 more...
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Botany
Tweets
Looking for tweets for bract.
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