self-pollinate
Americanverb (used with or without object)
Etymology
Origin of self-pollinate
First recorded in 1885–90
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.
See Examples For:
Infinitely creative, some flowers know what to do when good men are hard to find—they self-pollinate.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 17, 2026
This allows them to self-pollinate instead of relying on birds, insects or other pollinators.
From Salon ● Nov. 9, 2023
In rice, seed companies must first develop a strain of plants that can’t self-pollinate.
From Science Magazine ● May 17, 2023
Most cucumbers can’t self-pollinate, which means that they need the pollen of another plant to form seeds and fruit.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 11, 2022
To find out, he allowed all seven kinds of F1 hybrids to self-pollinate.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2018
The stocks were true-breeding, meaning that when self-pollinated, the offspring had the same traits as the parents.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2018
First of all, cotton is self-pollinated rather than wind-pollinated, so that the spread of the Bt gene is of less concern.
From Time Magazine Archive
For inbreeding, the tassels and silk are protected by paper bags until maturity, and the plants are then self-pollinated by hand.
From Time Magazine Archive
By selecting isolated trees for this mating, the nuts would either be self-pollinated or a cross of the desirable varieties.
From Northern Nut Growers Association Thirty-Fourth Annual Report 1943 by Northern Nut Growers Association
But the most encouraging feature of these chinquapin-crenata crosses is the excellence of their seedlings as grown from chance or self-pollinated nuts.
From Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting Washington, D. C. September 8 and 9, 1916. by Northern Nut Growers Association
To avoid potentially deadly wildlife he focused on self-pollinating varieties.
From BBC ● Mar. 26, 2026
If you are only purchasing one tree, make sure it is a self-pollinating variety.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 27, 2021
High-yield hybrid corn was already in production, and Mr. Yuan sought to do something similar with rice, a self-pollinating crop that posed a far greater challenge for plant breeders.
From Washington Post ● May 25, 2021
The immigrant Berckmanses, along with genteel entrepreneurs like Samuel Rumph, selectively bred natural and imported peaches into the self-pollinating Elberta cultivar, Georgia’s best-known variety.
From Slate ● Jan. 5, 2021
Many of these late-stage fruit trees posed a further problem in that their wild progenitors were the opposite of self-pollinating.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
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.
