Meaning
An organism that is not an animal, especially an organism capable of photosynthesis, and typically a small or herbaceous organism of this kind, rather than a tree.
Etymology
Origin: Old English
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *pleth₂-? Proto-Indo-European *pel-? Proto-Indo-European *pleh₂-der. Proto-Indo-European *pléh₂-n̥t-eh₂ Proto-Italic *plāntā? Proto-Indo-European *pleh₂k-der. Proto-Indo-European *pl̥h₂nk /*gteh₂ Proto-Italic *plānktā Latin plantabor. Proto-West Germanic *plantu Old English plante Middle English plante English plant From Middle English plante, from Old English plante (“young tree or shrub, herb newly planted”), from Proto-West Germanic *plantu, from Latin planta (“sprout, shoot, cutting”). Broader sense of "any vegetable life, vegetation generally" is from Old French plante. Doublet of clan (borrowed through Celtic languages) and planta (directly from Latin). The verb is from Middle English planten, from Old English plantian (“to plant”), from Latin plantāre, later influenced by Old French planter. Compare also Dutch planten (“to plant”), German pflanzen (“to plant”), Swedish plantera (“to plant”), Icelandic planta (“to plant”). The factory and machinery senses comes from the Latin sense of "any vegetable production that serves to propagate the species," which refers to something that produces.
Synonyms & Antonyms
NYT Puzzle Appearances
Accepted in 8 recorded puzzles: