canescent

[kuh-nes-uhnt]

adjective

1. covered with whitish or grayish pubescence, as certain plants.

canescent

/ kəˈnɛsənt /

adjective

1. biology white or greyish due to the presence of numerous short white hairs

2. becoming hoary, white, or greyish

Other Word Forms

• canescence noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of canescent¹

1840–50; < Latin cānēscent- stem of cānēscēns, present participle of cānēscere to grow gray, equivalent to cān ( us ) gray + -ēscent- -escent

Word History and Origins

Origin of canescent¹

C19: from Latin cānescere to grow white, become hoary, from cānēre to be white

Example Sentences

Low, hirsute and hispid, not canescent; heads small.

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Indeed, after the canescent heat of the day, and the tossing of our ill-conditioned vessel, we should have been contented with lodgings far less luxurious.

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Stouter and more rigid, leaves of radical shoots thicker, linear, hoary, the cauline puberulent or glabrous, calyx canescent.

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Pod 1–several-seeded, septate within between the seeds.—Herbs or shrubs, mostly canescent with appressed hairs fixed by the middle, with odd-pinnate faintly-nerved leaves, and pink or purplish flowers in naked axillary spikes.

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