Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act of germinating or budding.
  • noun Specifically, in botany, a mode of cell-multiplication in which a cell forms a slight protuberance on one side, which afterward increases to the size of the parent-cell, and is cut off from it by the formation of a dividing wall at the narrow point of junction: same as sprouting. This mode of multiplication is especially characteristic of the yeast-plant and its allies.

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

  • noun A germinating, or budding.

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

  • noun A teeming, swarming, or multiplying.

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

  • noun asexual reproduction in which a local growth on the surface or in the body of the parent becomes a separate individual
  • noun a rapid and abundant increase

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

pullulate +‎ -ion

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Examples

  • Thanks to blogs and burgeoning user content platforms, ( "the pullulation of commentary," as MacDonald puts it), everyone today is a critic.

    Amateurism, the Internet and Literary Criticism: by Nigel Beale 2009

  • Thanks to blogs and burgeoning user content platforms, ( "the pullulation of commentary," as MacDonald puts it), everyone today is a critic.

    2009 May 16 | NIGEL BEALE NOTA BENE BOOKS 2009

  • To begin with, have you remarked that pullulation of new idioms used by Norpois which, exhausted by daily use — for really he is indefatigable and I believe the death of my Aunt Ville-parisis gave him a second youth — are immediately replaced by others that are in general use.

    Time Regained 2003

  • Nonetheless, the Dahna adherents saw the incursion and pullulation of life through the universe as a horrible error.

    INTELLIVORE DIANE DUANE 2000

  • To pay one's $5.00 and join the full house at the Translux for the evening show of Last Tango in Paris is to be reminded once again that the planet is in a state of pullulation.

    A Transit to Narcissus Mailer, Norman 1973

  • It must be admitted that this city, with its starved professional classes, its lavish governmental display, and its pullulation of an exploiting class, sometimes presents an unattractive appearance.

    Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: Part V 1969

  • It must be admitted that this city, with its starved professional classes, its lavish governmental display, and its pullulation of an exploiting class, sometimes presents an unattractive appearance.

    Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: Part V 1941

  • The approaches to the monorail station were black with the ant-like pullulation of lower-caste activity.

    Brave New World Huxley, Aldous, 1894-1963 1932

  • No good ever came of argument and dialectic, for these breed only angry gestures and gusty disputes (_de gustibus non disputandum_) and the ruin of friendships and the very fruitful pullulation of

    On Nothing and Kindred Subjects Hilaire Belloc 1911

  • The one chiefly noticed by contemporaries was the pullulation of new sects.

    The Age of the Reformation Preserved Smith 1910

Comments

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  • "Couldn't you give the animals a little holiday from producing children?" asked Anne. "I'm so sorry for the poor things."

    Mr. Wimbush shook his head. "Personally," he said, "I rather like seeing fourteen pigs grow where only one grew before. The spectacle of so much crude life is refreshing."

    "I'm glad to hear you say so," Gombauld broke in warmly. "Lots of life: that's what we want. I like pullulation; everything ought to increase and multiply as hard as it can."

    - Aldous Huxley, Crome Yellow

    March 28, 2008

  • Oh, and I thought it was just the noise that a pig made upon seeing its sibling be served up in a barbeque sandwich.

    (deriving from the terms 'ululation' and 'pulled pork sandwich')

    March 28, 2008

  • Let's hope Huxley wasn't consulting WeirdNet when he wrote this. At least not the first definition.

    March 28, 2008

  • He is using the third definition.

    March 29, 2008