pollen
pronunciation
How to pronounce pollen in British English:
UK [ˈpɒlən]
How to pronounce pollen in American English:
US [ˈpɑːlən]
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- Noun:
- the fine spores that contain male gametes and that are borne by an anther in a flowering plant
Word Origin
- pollen
- pollen: [16] Pollen originally meant ‘flour’ in English. Not until the 18th century was it taken up as a botanical term. It was borrowed from Latin pollen ‘powder, dust, flour’, a relative of pulvis ‘dust’ (source of English powder and pulverize) and polenta ‘pearl barley’ (source of English polenta [16]).=> polenta, powder, pulverize
- pollen (n.)
- 1760 as a botanical term for the fertilizing element of flowers (from Linnæus, 1751), earlier "fine flour" (1520s), from Latin pollen "mill dust; fine flour," related to polenta "peeled barley," and pulvis (genitive pulveris) "dust," from PIE root *pel- (1) "dust; flour" (cognates: Greek poltos "pap, porridge," Sanskrit pálalam "ground seeds," Lithuanian pelenai, Old Church Slavonic popelu, Russian pépelŭ "ashes").
Example
- 1. The air is pure , with neither pollution nor pollen .
- 2. Plan workouts when pollen counts are low .
- 3. Pollen samples indicated forests were replaced by fields of cotton and corn .
- 4. Pollen is usually blown to other trees and fertilizes their ovules .
- 5. Also , seeds and pollen found in them can help reconstruct previous environments .