circumnutate
Americanverb (used without object)
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of circumnutate
1875–80; circum- + nutate < Latin nūtātus, past participle of nūtāre to nod in assent, sway, totter
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:
Nor did it sink down during the 28th, but continued to circumnutate about the same place.
From The Power of Movement in Plants by Darwin, Charles
This movement has been called by Sachs "revolving nutation;" but we have found it much more convenient to use the terms circumnutation and circumnutate.
From The Power of Movement in Plants by Darwin, Charles
In this position it continues to circumnutate until the following morning, when it reassumes its former position.
From The Power of Movement in Plants by Darwin, Charles
The lowest members of the vegetable series, the Thallogens, apparently circumnutate.
From The Power of Movement in Plants by Darwin, Charles
The primary radicle emits secondary ones which project sub-horizontally; and these were observed in one case to circumnutate.
From The Power of Movement in Plants by Darwin, Charles
Therefore the cotyledons certainly circumnutated, though the chief movement was up and down in a vertical plane.
From The Power of Movement in Plants by Darwin, Charles
As we see in the figure, there can be no doubt that the apex of this leaf circumnutated.
From The Power of Movement in Plants by Darwin, Charles
We thus see that the sub-peduncle oscillated up and down, or circumnutated, during its whole downward epinastic course.
From The Power of Movement in Plants by Darwin, Charles
If they had not circumnutated, their tips would have been liable to have been doubled up, as often as they met with obstacles in their path; but as it is, they easily avoid them.
From The Power of Movement in Plants by Darwin, Charles
On the second day it sank and rose again, but between 10 A.M. and 6 P.M. it circumnutated on an extremely small scale.
From The Power of Movement in Plants by Darwin, Charles
Judging from previous cases, there can hardly be a doubt that this seedling was circumnutating.
From The Power of Movement in Plants by Darwin, Charles
Here therefore there is in the evening the same conversion of a circumnutating into a steady movement in one direction, as in the case of the main petiole.
From The Power of Movement in Plants by Darwin, Charles
The petioles and sub-petioles are continually circumnutating during the whole 24 h., as we shall presently see.
From The Power of Movement in Plants by Darwin, Charles
Brassica oleracea: circumnutating movement of buried and arched hypocotyl, with the two legs of the arch tied together, traced on horizontal glass during 33 ½ hours.
From The Power of Movement in Plants by Darwin, Charles
In looking at the diagrams, we should remember that the stems were always growing, so that in each case the circumnutating apex as it rose will have described a spire of some kind.
From The Power of Movement in Plants by Darwin, Charles
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.
