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.
He was in need of a botanist and approached Reinhold.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 12, 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
"My long-standing aim is to rethink what it truly means to be a plant," says Kobe University botanist Kenji Suetsugu.
From Science Daily • Dec. 14, 2025
The poinsettias we buy today are significantly different from the tall, gangly plants botanist Joel Roberts Poinsett discovered in Mexico in 1825, after he became that country’s first U.S. ambassador.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 20, 2025
According to Charles R. Clement, the Manaus botanist, though, the first Amazonians did avoid the Dilemma of Rainfall Physics.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
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.
