archaeophyte
/ɑɹˈki.əˌfaɪt/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
25
Scrabble Score
12
Letters
4
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A plant which was introduced to an area by humans (or arrived naturally, but from an area in which it was present as a human introduction) and became naturalized before 1500 C.E. (but especially in prehistoric times).
Example Sentences
- "[page 126] Archæophytes (Rikli), plants which have occurred constantly with us since pre-historic times, originally, however, growing wild nowhere in the country, field and garden weeds, […] [page 127] Further, the flora of the cultivated areas consists of a very heterogeneous element, e.g., the field weed flora is composed of at least two groups, the true Archæophytes […] and the spontaneous Apophytes […]"
- "Anthropochorous plants are divided into (a) those introduced unintentionally, including ephemerophytes (casuals), epoikophytes (colonists, aliens) and archaeophytes (naturalised plants), and (b) those introduced intentionally, including ergasiphytes (foreign cultivated plants) and ergasiphygophytes (escapes from cultivation)."
- "It may be doubtful whether the three species first mentioned should more properly be regarded as archæophytes, since they also occur outside the actually cultivated soil; […]"
- "N. Eur. an archæophyte, following the cereals, Færoes one place, but here noticed with an interval of 30 years."
- "Carduus acanthoides […] In Central Bohemia an archeophyte growing in a variety of ruderal habitats (dumps, railroads, construction areas, waste places), in pastures, and abandoned fields."
- "[A]rcheophytes are adapted to habitat types created early in history, including pastures, fields, and their edges; many of the neophytes, on the other hand, occur predominantly in ruderal, industrial, and urban habitats. […] [T]he proportion of neophytes is much higher in the flora of Berlin than in adjacent non-urban areas, but no difference was found for archeophytes."
Etymology
From archaeo- (“ancient; early”) + -phyte (“a plant that grows in a specified habitat”). Archaeo- is derived from Ancient Greek ἀρχαῖος (arkhaîos, “ancient, primeval”), from ᾰ̓ρχή (ărkhḗ, “beginning, origin”) (from ἄρχω (árkhō, “to begin; to command, rule”) + -ῐος (-ĭos, “suffix forming adjectives”); while -phyte is from Ancient Greek φῠτόν (phŭtón, “plant; tree”), from φῠ́ω (phŭ́ō, “to arise, grow, spring up”) + -ον (-on, “suffix forming nouns”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ɑɹˈki.əˌfaɪt/
- British English: /ɑːˈkiː.əˌfaɪt/