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 aplant . - 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).
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Examples
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Bet "etiolate" would stump all but the most zanily creative among us.
The Globe and Mail - Home RSS feed Judith Fitzgerald 2010
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Fourth, the irrefutable theory of irreducible complexity of Michael Behe will etiolate.
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Fourth, the irrefutable theory of irreducible complexity of Michael Behe will etiolate.
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Fourth, the irrefutable theory of irreducible complexity of Michael Behe will etiolate.
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If the nut is planted deep this causes much suckering and a tendency to etiolate the buds so they will stand water.
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Understood only by a small group of specialists. etiolate
GeekLikeMe.net 2009
djilk commented on the word etiolate
"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