Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb Botany To cause (a plant) to develop without chlorophyll by preventing exposure to sunlight.
  • intransitive verb To cause to appear pale and sickly.
  • intransitive verb To make weak by stunting the growth or development of.
  • intransitive verb To become blanched or whitened, as when grown without sunlight.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To grow white from absence of the normal amount of coloring matter, as the leaves or stalks of plants; be whitened by exclusion of the light of the sun, as plants: sometimes, in pathology, said of persons.
  • To blanch; whiten by exclusion of the sun's rays or by disease.
  • Synonyms Blanch, etc. See whiten.
  • Also etiolize.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To blanch; to bleach; to whiten by depriving of the sun's rays.
  • transitive verb (Med.) To cause to grow pale by disease or absence of light.
  • intransitive verb To become white or whiter; to be whitened or blanched by excluding the light of the sun, as, plants.
  • intransitive verb (Med.) To become pale through disease or absence of light.
  • adjective Having a blanched or faded appearance, as birds inhabiting desert regions.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To make pale through lack of light, especially of a plant.
  • verb To make a person pale and sickly-looking.
  • adjective etiolated

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb bleach and alter the natural development of (a green plant) by excluding sunlight
  • adjective (especially of plants) developed without chlorophyll by being deprived of light
  • verb make weak by stunting the growth or development of
  • verb make pale or sickly

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French étioler, from Norman French étieuler, to grow into haulm, from éteule, stalk, from Old French esteule, from Vulgar Latin *stupula, from Latin stipula.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

French étioler, from Norman French étieuler, ultimately from Old French estuble ("stubble"), from Latin stupla, from stipula ("straw, stubble") (English stubble).

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word etiolate.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • "Already, on the walk from the station, the May sunshine had made him feel dirty and etiolated, a creature of indoors, with the sooty dust of London in the pores of his skin." George Orwell, 1984

    February 6, 2011