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  1. exfoliate love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. v. To remove (a layer of bark or skin, for example) in flakes or scales; peel.
  2. v. To cast off in scales, flakes, or splinters.
  3. v. To come off or separate into flakes, scales, or layers.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. To throw off scales or flakes; peel off in thin fragments; desquamate: as, the exfoliating bark of a tree.
  2. Specifically In surgery, to separate and come off in scales, as carious bone.
  3. In mineralogy, to split into scales; especially, to become scaly at the surface in consequence of heat or decomposition: as, vermiculite exfoliates before the blowpipe.
  4. To scale; free from scales or splinters.

Wiktionary

  1. v. To remove the leaves from a plant.
  2. v. To remove a layer of skin, as in cosmetic preparation.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. v. To separate and come off in scales or laminæ, as pieces of carious bone or of bark.
  2. v. (Min.) To split into scales, especially to become converted into scales at the result of heat or decomposition.
  3. v. To remove scales, laminæ, or splinters from the surface of.

WordNet 3.0

  1. v. grow by producing or unfolding leaves
  2. v. cast off in scales, laminae, or splinters
  3. v. come off in a very thin piece
  4. v. spread by opening the leaves of
  5. v. remove the surface, in scales or laminae

Etymologies

  1. From exfoliāt-, the perfect passive participial stem of the Late Latin exfoliō ("I strip of leaves"), from ex ("out of”, “from") + folium ("leaf"); compare effoliate and the French exfolier. (Wiktionary)
  2. Latin exfoliāre, exfoliāt-, to strip of leaves : ex-, ex- + folium, leaf; see bhel-3 in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

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synonyms (2)

Words with the same meaning

  1. scale
  1. shed

hypernyms (19)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. grow
  2. throwaway
  3. shed
  1. shake off
  2. throw
  3. cast
  1. drop
  2. throw-off
  3. cast-off
  1. chip
  2. break off
  3. breakaway
  1. come off
  2. chip off
  3. open
  1. unfold
  2. spread out
  3. spread
  1. peel off

reverse dictionary (1)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. desquamate

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  1. vccvcvvcv

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‘exfoliate’ has been looked up 2181 times, added to 11 lists, and has a Scrabble score of 19.