sensitive plant
Americannoun
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Also called humble plant. a tropical American plant, Mimosa pudica, cultivated in greenhouses, having bipinnate leaves whose leaflets fold together when touched.
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any of various other plants that are sensitive to touch.
noun
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a tropical American mimosa plant, Mimosa pudica, the leaflets and stems of which fold if touched
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any similar plant, such as the leguminous plant Cassia nictitans of E North America
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informal a person who is easily upset
Etymology
Origin of sensitive plant
First recorded in 1650–60
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.
The fire also swept through parts of the island that have rare habitats for sensitive plant and animal species found nowhere else, such as the endangered San Clemente loggerhead shrike, a carnivorous songbird.
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 4, 2024
The researchers trapped pea plants in glass chambers with ether, soaked roots of the sensitive plant and seedlings of garden cress in lidocaine and even measured the electrical activity of a Venus fly trap’s cells.
From New York Times • Feb. 2, 2018
Claude Bernard showed the sensitive plant, Mimosa pudica, succumbed to it as early as 1878.
From Scientific American • Jan. 28, 2018
They are designed to show you things and help you avoid trampling over sensitive plant and animal habitats.
From Washington Post • May 31, 2013
Abelman certainly wanted a great deal of money; that sensitive plant of an Abelman must have been greatly offended.
From "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole
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.
