premorse

American  

[pri-mawrs] / prɪˈmɔrs /

adjective

Biology.

1. having the end irregularly truncate, as if bitten or broken off.

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premorse British  

/ prɪˈmɔːs /

adjective

1. biology appearing as though the end had been bitten off

   a premorse leaf

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Etymology

Origin of premorse

1745–55; < Latin praemorsus bitten off in front (past participle of praemordēre ), equivalent to prae- pre- + morsus bitten; morsel

Example Sentences

Seeds with a large crest.—A low perennial, with thick prostrate premorse rootstocks, surcharged with red-orange acrid juice, sending up in earliest spring a rounded palmate-lobed leaf, and a 1-flowered naked scape.

From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Gray, Asa