annual ring

noun

1. an annual formation of wood in plants, consisting of two concentric layers, one of springwood and one of summerwood.

annual ring

noun

1. Also called: tree ring. a ring of wood indicating one year's growth, seen in the transverse section of stems and roots of woody plants growing in temperate climates

annual ring

1. See under growth ring

Word History and Origins

Origin of annual ring¹

First recorded in 1875–80

Example Sentences

The process of photosynthesis preserves the information contained in carbon dioxide in the annual rings of trees.

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Since the 1960s, researchers have mainly done this recalibration with trees, counting annual rings to get calendar dates and matching those with measured radiocarbon dates.

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In the same way that trees detail their growth in annual rings, so glaciers compact a record of the chemical composition of the air, trapped in bubbles in the yearly build-up of ice.

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Trees in cold Arctic or alpine forests have annual rings with widths and wood densities that reflect year-to-year variations in summer temperature5.

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But Pearson's team was able to measure the radiocarbon more precisely, in single, annual rings of three ancient bristlecone pines in California and two oak trees in Ireland.

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