botanist
Americannoun
-
botanists
plural
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of botanist
1675–85; botan ( ism ) botany (< Greek botanismós, equivalent to botán ( ē ) plant + -ismos -ism ) + -ist
Explanation
Use the noun botanist to describe a biologist whose specialty is plants — the way they grow, the differences between them, and everything else that has to do with plant science. The earliest botanists, in the 1500s, began a system of classifying plants scientifically, while modern botanists study the DNA of plants as well as their uses in medicine and nutrition. The root word is botanic, from the Greek botanikos, "of herbs."
Vocabulary lists containing botanist
Because of Mr. Terupt
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Wishtree
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"The Science of Breakable Things" by Tae Keller, List 1
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
White lilies are said to represent peace and are a traditional choice for acts of remembrance in the UK, says botanist James Wong of BBC Gardeners' Question Time.
From BBC ● Oct. 14, 2026
A botanist answers the second question: Miss Wolcott’s Ghost, long believed extinct.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 7, 2026
Campbell is a keen botanist and has a diploma from the Royal Horticultural Society; Robertson has started learning how to mend clothes and is an avid music video fan.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 30, 2026
Baimedov, who has become an amateur botanist, tends to about 15,000 saplings, which are aimed at forming a green wall against the sand.
From Barron's ● Dec. 18, 2025
That same year de Vries published his monumental study of plant variants, Carl Correns, a botanist in Tübingen, published a study on pea and maize hybrids that precisely recapitulated Mendel’s results.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
The British botanists had been collecting indigenous plants and seeds, before their bodies were found days later in a river.
From BBC ● Jul. 2, 2026
This created a “competition for botanical immortality,” as dubiously qualified botanists described and named plants for personal glory.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 16, 2026
In 2013, von Konrat led a team of botanists and volunteers to survey the region, cataloging grasses, trees, and mosses in search of a location that matched the plant material found on the shoes.
From Science Daily ● Jan. 1, 2026
Calling squash a fruit wears me out a little, but, okay botanists, with your genus-species-variety nomenclature, I concede: by definition, squash is indeed a fruit.
From Salon ● Jun. 5, 2025
In England, if not everywhere, most botanists and zoologists were a muddled lot.
From "Double Helix" by James D. Watson
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
