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pollinate

UK/ˈpɒlɪneɪt/US/ˈpɒlɪneɪt/
verbB2+Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #13,545 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: pollinated, pollinating, pollinates

To pollinate is to carry pollen from one flower to another. Bees pollinate the crop, hand-pollinate, pollinated by wind.

About three quarters of food crops depend on animals to do it, mostly insects, which is why pollinator decline is an agricultural problem and not only a conservation one. Some plants are pollinated by wind and produce vast amounts of pollen instead. Note that the Latin pollen means fine flour.

Definitions of pollinate

  1. 1verbpollinateTo carry pollen from one flower to another.B2+

    “Bees pollinate the apple blossom as they move from tree to tree.”

pollinate is a carrying of pollen.

Where it comes from

Latin pollen means fine flour or dust. Pollen and pulverise come from a related fineness.

  1. Latin

    pollen

  2. English, today

    pollinate

From pollen + -ate. From oblique stem of Latin pollen.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Insects & Sea Life

Practise this word

pollinate in the wild

  • Generally speaking, the term refers to plants pollinated naturally by birds, insects, wind, or human hands.

    Open pollination

  • Most staple food grains, like wheat, rice, soybean, maize and sorghum, need no insect help at all; they are wind or self-pollinated.

    List of crop plants pollinated by bees

  • Lithophragma specifically coevolved with moths of the genus Greya, who pollinate and only lay eggs on Lithophragma plants.

    Lithophragma

  • The presence of both flower types allows mixed breeding system species to cross-pollinate and self-fertilize.

    Chasmogamy

  • Fig wasps have an obligate mutualism with the fig species they pollinate.

    Pleistodontes

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the pollen family

pollen

pollinate — used about once every 23,598 pages · #13,545 · point at the bar for the others