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Synonyms

bract

American  
[brakt] / brækt /

noun

Botany.

  1. a specialized leaf or leaflike part, usually situated at the base of a flower or inflorescence.

bract British  
/ brækt /

noun

  1. a specialized leaf, usually smaller than the foliage leaves, with a single flower or inflorescence growing in its axil

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
bract Scientific  
/ brăkt /

  1. A modified leaf growing just below a flower or flower stalk. Bracts are generally small and inconspicuous, but some are showy and petallike, as the brightly colored bracts of bougainvillaea or the white or pink bracts of flowering dogwoods.

Other Word Forms

  • bracteal adjective
  • bracted adjective
  • bractless adjective

Etymology

Origin of bract

1760–70; earlier bractea < Latin: a thin plate of metal

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.

The real flowers are small, yellow and appear at the tip of the stem surrounded by the bract.

From Seattle Times • Dec. 13, 2023

Instead it is achieved by breeding to increase the red pigmentation in the layers of bract cells.

From Washington Post • Dec. 5, 2017

Visitors get to see what the wildling looks like, a tall, leggy bush with bract clusters isolated at the end of long branches.

From Washington Post • Dec. 5, 2017

A dogwood poinsettia that McLaughlin grew from seed he received from Le Duc is central to the exhibit, though it looks pretty prosaic — a lanky vase-shaped shrub with small white bract clusters.

From Washington Post • Dec. 5, 2017

The flowers are yellowish-white, in drooping clusters opening in early summer, and flower stem is united to the middle of a long narrow leaf-like bract.

From Forest Trees of Illinois How to Know Them by Fuller George D.

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.