cycad

[ sahy-kad ]

noun

1. any gymnospermous plant of the order Cycadales, intermediate in appearance between ferns and the palms, many species having a thick, unbranched, columnar trunk bearing a crown of large, leathery, pinnate leaves.

cycad

/ ˈsaɪkæd /

noun

1. See sago palm
   any tropical or subtropical gymnosperm plant of the phylum Cycadophyta , having an unbranched stem with fernlike leaves crowded at the top See also sago palm

cycad

/ sī′kăd′ /

1. Any of various evergreen plants that live in tropical and subtropical regions, have large feathery leaves, and resemble palm trees in that most leaves cluster around the top of the stem. Cycads are gymnosperms that bear conelike reproductive structures at the top of the stem, with male and female cones borne on different plants. Cycads were common in many parts of the Earth during the Jurassic Period and survive today in about 250 species. Sago palms are cycads.

Derived Forms

• ˌcycaˈdaceous, adjective

Other Words From

• cycad·like adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of cycad¹

1835–45; < New Latin Cycad- (stem of Cycas ) genus name < Greek kýkas, misspelling of kóïkas, accusative plural of kóïx kind of palm

Word History and Origins

Origin of cycad¹

C19: from New Latin Cycas name of genus, from Greek kukas, scribe's error for koïkas, from koïx a kind of palm, probably of Egyptian origin

Example Sentences

Abundant now, as throughout the Mesozoic, were cycads — palm-like plants with seed-producing cones.

From Science News For Students

Animals like dinosaurs and plants like cycads, says Ruffell, were “waiting in the wings” to seize their opportunity.

From Science News

Therapods had a varied diet, while herbivores chowed down on ferns, cycads, and conifers, to name some ancient plants that are still around today.

From Popular-Science

As dinosaurs lumbered through the humid cycad forests of ancient South America 180 million years ago, primeval lizards scurried, unnoticed, beneath their feet.

From Popular-Science

It was thickly covered with a fine cycad which grows amongst the rocks overhanging the sea.

From Project Gutenberg

At Treasury Island I found a solitary cycad at a height of a thousand feet above the sea.

From Project Gutenberg

Bowenia, an Australian cycad, is peculiar in having bi-pinnate fronds (fig. 5).

From Project Gutenberg

Palms are so like cycads that we may regard them as the descendants of some cycad type.

From Project Gutenberg

Opposite me is a funny old cycad, not branched at all but bent.

From Project Gutenberg