When pollen is carried into the air by the wind, it frequently causes allergic reactions (see allergy) in humans.
1515–25; < New Latin, special use of Latin: fine flour, mill dust
Pollen is the grainy stuff inside a flowering plant that makes it possible for the plant to reproduce. Insects, birds, people, and the wind help to spread pollen between plants. When pollen spreads to the female part of a plant, it germinates, or begins the process of growing a new plant. When pollen spreads like this, it's called pollination, and it's how plants reproduce. Pollen is great for plants but not so great if you have hay fever, an allergy to pollen. The first meaning of pollen was "fine flour," which is what pollen looks like.
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"We used a simple and very low-cost technique that quantifies the 'darkness' of fossil pollen and spores, a so-called Palynomorph Darkness Index."
From Science Daily ● Jul. 22, 2026
Air pollution, wildfire smoke, industrial disasters like the East Palestine, Ohio train wreck and extended pollen seasons are all reasons why people are increasingly concerned with making their indoor environments actually breathable.
From Salon ● Jul. 19, 2026
There’s a purpose to the stench: attracting flies and beetles to help carry pollen.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 10, 2026
Gentle breezes can also transport pollen over large distances away from the immediate sources and an easterly wind is expected in southern areas from Friday.
From BBC ● Jul. 9, 2026
Honeybees and wild bees depend heavily on such “weeds” as goldenrod, mustard, and dandelions for pollen that serves as the food of their young.
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
Pollen collected by bumblebees contained between two and seven times more heavy metals than pollen collected by honeybees across most of the metals examined.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 7, 2026
Pollen levels will remain high or very high for many areas of England.
From BBC ● Apr. 11, 2026
In the first decade of the 20th century, two brilliant English civilians, Arthur Pollen and Harold Isherwood, invented the world’s first modern gunnery computer to aim the big guns of battleships.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 10, 2026
Pollen and Isherwood’s resolution to export gave the navy of the other noisiest champion—the U.S.—the opportunity to pirate them too.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 10, 2026
They made Pollen Boy right in the center of the white corn painting.
From "Ceremony:" by Leslie Marmon Silko
She also explains that asthma is likely influenced by where someone lives—exposure to pollutants as well as the types of pollens or allergens can differ from region to region.
From Scientific American ● Oct. 20, 2023
Beekeepers are supposed to live longer than any other profession and that longevity is attributed to the raw honey and pollens they eat.
From Salon ● Jun. 3, 2023
The sticky stuff captured mammoths, saber-toothed cats, giant sloths and other iconic Ice Age mammals along with a near-perfect cross-section of the world they inhabited: birds, insects, plants, seeds, pollens.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 28, 2022
"You can end up breathing in both pollens simultaneously, rather than having a bit of a break from one to the next," she said.
From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2022
If I can prove what I really believe, it is a grand case of trimorphism, with three different pollens and three stigmas.
From See America First by Hiestand, Orville O.
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.
