canescent

American  

[kuh-nes-uhnt] / kəˈnɛs ənt /

adjective

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

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canescent British  

/ kəˈnɛsənt /

adjective

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

2. becoming hoary, white, or greyish

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Other Word Forms

• canescence
  noun

Etymology

Origin of canescent

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

Example Sentences

Wholly canescent with short appressed pubescence; leaves narrow, mostly oblanceolate.—Kan. to Tex.

From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Gray, Asa

Stem 2–5° high; leaves linear or linear-lanceolate, entire, usually glabrate above; heads oblong, canescent, 2–3´´ long—Minn. to Neb., and westward.

From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Gray, Asa

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

From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Gray, Asa

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.

From Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah — Volume 1 by Burton, Richard Francis, Sir

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

From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Gray, Asa