Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Flourishing in or adapted to a dry hot environment.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- In recent usage correlated with xerophyte and equivalent to xerophytic, properly in sense 1: first used by Thurmann (1849), who regarded xerophilous plants as correlated with dysgeogenous soils. See quotation under silicicolous.
- Loving dryness: in botany noting plants which are in various ways peculiarly adapted to dry, especially to hot and dry climates, as by possessing coriaceous leaves, succulent stems, etc.; specifically, belonging to the group of xerophils. See xerophil.
Wiktionary
- adj. Being able to thrive in dry weather.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. (Bot.) Drought-loving; able withstand the absence or lack of moisture.
Etymologies
- From the Greek ξηρός (ksēros, "parched") + φίλος (philos, "beloved") (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Forest remnants consist primarily of Quercus persica and, up to an elevation of 2,400m, xerophilous forest of Quercus spp., hawthorn (Crataegus), almond (Prunus amygdalus), nettle tree (Celtis) and pear (Pyrus spp) predominates.”
“The dunes and strand support only a few species of xerophilous herbaceous plants and are characteristically unwooded.”
Ecoregions of Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia (EPA)
“In the desert coastal areas of western Venezuela, mangrove forests are associated with xerophilous littoral scrubs, and halophilous and psammophilous littoral meadows.”
“It is dominated by five xerophilous dipterocarps and is confined to the poorest and most porous soils where fire occurs.”
“From east to west the vegetation changes in the ecoregion, from shrubland steppe with xerophilous shrubs such as Adesmia, Baccharis, Fabiana, and Senecio to grassy steppe with grasses of the genera Calamogrostis, Festuca, and Stipa.”
“Other types of vegetation are cactus scrub, xerophilous open woodland, rock associations, psammophilous associations, and halophilous associations.”
“In the sand dune areas, precisely where the birthplace of these topographical formations lies, between Coro and La Vela, a clear coastal area of shore grasses and xerophilous bush free of grazing was maintained for more than 20 years.”
“The bush lands go to clearly clayey-sandy soil in the xerophilous bush or scrublands, passing through intermediate forms in the briars.”
“In the xerophilous grasslands there are shallow soils and abundant outcrops of limestone rock.”
“The coastal xerophilous grasslands are distributed on the peninsula and on the coastal strip between the towns of Coro and La Vela and Coro and Adícora, where they form a narrow, more or less continuous, strip of stabilized dunes.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘xerophilous’.
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Logophily: Words with "phil"
List of words containing the string phil-, -phil-, -phil, or -phile, such as philopatry, bibliophile, and neutrophil.
Greek: φιλία/φίλος, φιλια-/φιλο - love, loving, love of, fondness for, at...philopatry, bibliophile, neutrophil, thalassophily, stegophilist, philoxeny, psychrophile, logophily, photophilia, photophilous, heliophilous, philornithic and 148 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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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2046 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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Philosophic , etymology
every major discipline has uniquely developed esoteric nomenclature to facilitate interdisciplinary dissemination
quale , qualia, elegy, tacet, lexicon, annunciate, caste, eros, contrive, purlicue, irony, venacular, dilapidate and 567 more...
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C. S. Bird – Grandiloquent Dictionary
All the words from the Grandiloquent Dictionary.
946 of these 2700 words do not yield any results in six different dictionaries, hence many of them might be misspellings.
More in...abacinate, abcedarian, abderian, ablegate, abligurition, ablutophobia, abnormous, acarophobia, acathasia, accipitrine, accidia, accubitus and 2690 more...
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Adjectival Arcana
A roster of adjectives that infrequently surface in typical conversation and writing. Many are dredged from scientific or other technical jargon or sieved from examples of disused archaic forms.
unitegmic, acaulescent, reticuloendothelial, ingressive, uniate, acanthopterygian, ossific, epiphysial, perivisceral, acœlomatous, cestoid, acælomate and 7756 more...
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Shunning or Drawn
Words that describe 'shunning' or 'drawn to' behavior, mostly of plants and animals.
lucifugous, lucifugal, solifugous, heliophobous, chionophobous, heliophobic, ombrophobous, heliophilous, leucophilous, nidifugous, nidicolous, finifugal and 31 more...
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perhapsolutely's Words
polyradiculoneuro..., abulia, abubble, abscission, abaft, zareba, abatis, abigail, abiogenesis, ablate, ablaut, abo and 1705 more...
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