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. 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

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.

Other Word Forms

• cycadaceous adjective
• cycadlike 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

“We have a really great collection of Ginkgo trees as well, and Sago palm cycads.”

Read more on Los Angeles Times

He's standing next to one of Kew's most precious specimens: a plant called Encephalartos altensteinii, which is a type of cycad.

Read more on BBC

Most of the old cycads revealed that they weren't nitrogen-fixers, but these also turned out to be the extinct lineages.

Read more on Science Daily

The cycad genome contains similar networks, showing they were active in the earliest seed plants, notes Shouzhou Zhang, the botanist at the Fairy Lake Botanical Garden in Shenzan, who led its sequencing.

Read more on Science Magazine

“These are all cycads,” the composer Tobias Picker said, gesturing at a low canopy of fanned-out, pinnate leaves near the entrance of the conservatory at the New York Botanical Garden.

Read more on New York Times