Dictionary.com
Thesaurus.com
Synonyms

corm

American  
[kawrm] / kɔrm /

noun

Botany.

  1. an enlarged, fleshy, bulblike base of a stem, as in the crocus.

corm British  
/ kɔːm /

noun

  1. an organ of vegetative reproduction in plants such as the crocus, consisting of a globular stem base swollen with food and surrounded by papery scale leaves Compare bulb

"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
corm Scientific  
/ kôrm /

  1. A fleshy underground stem that is similar to a bulb but stores its food as stem tissue and has fewer and thinner leaflike scales. The crocus and gladiolus produce new shoots from corms.

  2. Compare bulb rhizome runner tuber

Other Word Forms

  • cormlike adjective
  • cormoid adjective
  • cormous adjective

Etymology

Origin of corm

1820–30; < New Latin cormus < Greek kormós a tree trunk with boughs lopped off, akin to keírein to cut off, hew

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.

They were tantalized by images circulating online, purportedly taken by locals, that depict a towering banana corm, several stories high, with leaves about 5 yards long.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 18, 2017

The corm is used by gladiolus and garlic.

From Textbooks • Jan. 1, 2015

The jack-in- the-pulpit root, or corm, tastes and looks like potato.

From "My Side of the Mountain" by Jean Craighead George

I grab a huge corm, which we call the makua.

From "Clairboyance" by Kristiana Kahakauwila

The exhausted corm of the previous year is underneath; forming ones for next year on the summit and sides.

From The Elements of Botany For Beginners and For Schools by Gray, Asa

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.