axil

American  

[ak-sil] / ˈæk sɪl /

noun

Botany.

1. the angle between the upper side of a leaf or stem and the supporting stem or branch.

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axil British  

/ ˈæksɪl /

noun

1. the angle between the upper surface of a branch or leafstalk and the stem from which it grows

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axil Scientific  

/ ăk′sĭl /

1. The angle between the upper side of a leaf or stem and the stem or branch that supports it. A bud is usually found in the axil.

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Etymology

Origin of axil

First recorded in 1785–95, axil is from the Latin word axilla armpit

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

axil

Butternut branch, with accessory buds, the uppermost above the axil.

From The Elements of Botany For Beginners and For Schools by Asa Gray

Sometimes they are empty, no flower-buds being produced in their axil.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 10, Slice 5 "Fleury, Claude" to "Foraker" by Various

But in Ruscus, flowers are borne on one face, in the axil of a little scale: and this would seem to settle that they are branches.

From The Elements of Botany For Beginners and For Schools by Asa Gray

Flowers diœcious or polygamous, collected in terminal heads, each in the axil of a scaly bract, and with 5 or 6 thin and scarious imbricated bractlets, but no proper calyx.

From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Asa Gray

Seeds flattened.—Slender glabrous climbing annuals or perennials, with very small racemose or panicled white sterile flowers and a solitary fertile one in the same axil.

From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Asa Gray