botanist
Americannoun
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:
He was in need of a botanist and approached Reinhold.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026
Among the millions of observations shared on the platform, the photos eventually caught the attention of botanist Anthony Bean from the Queensland Herbarium.
From Science Daily ● May 18, 2026
"He's taken us all to places that we would never otherwise go. That's a huge gift," botanist Sandra Knapp, director of research at London's Natural History Museum, told AFP.
From Barron's ● May 6, 2026
The director of conservation at the California Botanic Garden, botanist Naomi Fraga, said a superbloom is typically classified as a regional phenomenon where you see fields of wildflowers stretching across hundreds of thousands of acres.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 10, 2026
In that same year, 1818, Caspar Wistar died, but he did gain a certain unexpected immortality when a botanist named Thomas Nuttall named a delightful climbing shrub after him.
From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
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
Some botanists believe poodle-dog is becoming more prevalent in a world where climate change is fueling more frequent fires.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 5, 2025
Knowing far more about local plants than all but a handful of modern professional botanists, they would hardly have failed to cultivate any useful wild plant species that was comparably suitable for domestication.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
Definitions 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.
