tendril

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The teacher may use his own judgment as to whether he will tell them that the tendril is a modified leaflet Illustration: FIG.

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Definitions (8)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. noun A twisting, threadlike structure by which a twining plant, such as a grape or cucumber, grasps an object or a plant for support.
  2. noun Something, such as a ringlet of hair, that is long, slender, and curling.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (3)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

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Examples (50)

  • This was a mere tendril, an operation at the periphery of mech interest.
  • The thread that Chrysler LLC is hanging by is on its last tendril, and the loans that the company received may only allow it to get out from under the debts owed to key suppliers. —  Saab Cars - Trollhattan Saab
  • Indeed, noble as is this plant in every part, I think this tendril is the crowning grace of the whole: it is exceedingly slender, throwing off side-branches, which, again, repeatedly fork off at acute angles in pairs, and each extremity of each branch is furnished with a minute and delicate hook, so small as to be scarcely perceptible, but so strong and sharp-pointed as to lay hold of every object in its way--which hold it retains, when once well fixed, in spite of wind or weather. —  Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852
  • Presently he fished up a bundle of leaves bound with a vine-tendril, which he laid carefully aside. —  The Cruise of the Cachalot Round the World After Sperm Whales
  • It will then be seen that the tendril, after forming a spiral one way, lengthens out like a tiny green wax taper, and afterwards turns the other. —  Nature Near London
 

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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

wisp ·  pergola ·  streamer ·  tress ·  strand ·  trickle ·  sliver ·  frond ·  overgrowth ·  wreath ·  tuft ·  creeper
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. French tendrillon, from Old French, diminutive of tendron, young shoot, from tendre, tender; see tender1.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Early modern English also tendrel, tendrell; from Old French *tendrille, French tendrille, a tendril (cf. Old French tendron, a tendril, shoot: see tendron), from tendre, tender, delicate: see tender.
 

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/ˈtɛndrɪl/
by American Heritage

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