cyme
/saɪm/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 1.50 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A flattish or convex flower cluster, of the centrifugal or determinate type, on which each axis terminates with a flower which blooms before the flowers below it.
noun
A cyma.
noun
Misspelling of senna.
Example Sentences
- "The inflorescence is some form of cyme, and the flowers are usually regular."
- "The plant bears small groups of two or three yellowish coloured flowers on an axillary cyme."
- "The flower cluster is a cyme (terminal flower is the most advanced), is terminal within the bud and may contain up to six individual flowers."
Etymology
] Borrowed from French cime, cyme (“top, summit”), from Vulgar Latin *cima, from Latin cȳma (“young sprout of a cabbage”, “spring shoots of cabbage”), from Ancient Greek κῦμα (kûma, “anything swollen, such as a wave or billow”; “fetus”, “embryo”, “sprout of a plant”), from κύω (kúō, “to conceive”, “to become pregnant”; in the aorist “to impregnate”). For considerably more information, see cyma, which is an etymological doublet. Compare also Frankish *kīmō (“sprout”), from Proto-Germanic *kīmô, whence German Keim (“sprout”).
Origin
- Source language: French
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- British English: /saɪm/
Usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in Medicine.
Inflected Forms
cymes (plural)
cime (alternative)