"involucre" - Word of the Day from the OED

OED Online Word of the Day

Now available: the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary

This new print publication provides a unique resource for scholars researching linguistic and literary history, the history of the language, social history, and more. Read more and see a sample page.

"An indispensable tool for writers." –School Library Journal.

The updated Second Edition of the Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus is more exceptional than ever, solidifying its place as the one thesaurus writers at all levels will want to have. A perfect graduation gift!

---

involucre

SECOND EDITION 1989

(nvl(j)uk(r))  [a. F. involucre (1545 in Hatz.-Darm.), ad. L. involcrum.] 

    1. That which envelops or enwraps; a case, covering, envelope; spec. in Anat., a membranous envelope, as the pericardium.

1578 BANISTER Hist. Man I. 25 Pericardon (whiche is the Inuolucre of the hart). 1822-34 Good's Study Med. (ed. 4) I. 29 The involucres of the teeth are their gums, membranes, and sockets or alveoli.

fig. 1873 EARLE Philol. Eng. Tongue (ed. 2) §196 The verb is the central representative and focus of that predicative force..which in the interjection is wrapped round and enfolded with an involucre of emotion. 1898 Month June 600 To distinguish the emotional substance of religion from its intellectual involucre.

    2. Bot. A whorl or rosette of bracts surrounding an inflorescence, or at the base of an umbel.
  Also b. In ferns, sometimes applied to the indusium. c. In liverworts, a sheath of tissue surrounding the female sexual organs. d. In fungi, the velum. partial involucre = INVOLUCEL. See also INVOLUCRUM 2.

1794 MARTYN Rousseau's Bot. v 56 This set of small leaves or folioles is called the involucre. 1800 Asiatic Ann. Reg., Misc. Tr. 165/1 Flowers.in umbells..Involucre many leaved, the leaves toothed. 1845 LINDLEY Sch. Bot. i. (1858) 11 When many bracts are collected in a whorl round several flowers they form an involucre. 1861 MISS PRATT Flower. Pl. VI. 146 The indusium.. in some few of our native species, as in the Filmy Ferns,..is cup-shaped,..it is then often called an involucre. 1875 BENNETT & DYER Sachs' Bot. 303 The surrounding tissue of the thallus divides repeatedly and grows into an involucre which is arched upwards and through which the elongating sporogonium afterwards pushes its way. Ibid. 306.

    3. Zool. = INVOLUCRUM 3.

To cancel this service, send a message to wotd@oed.com consisting of the text signoff oedwotd-l and leave the subject line blank . Alternatively, use this unsubscribe mail link.

Written requests to unsubscribe may be sent to:

Online Products
Oxford University Press
Great Clarendon Street
Oxford OX2 6DP
UK

Visit the OED's home page at www.oed.com

Copyright © Oxford University Press 2008

Oxford University Press (UK) Disclaimer

This message is confidential. You should not copy it or disclose its contents to anyone. You may use and apply the information for the intended purpose only. OUP does not accept legal responsibility for the contents of this message. Any views or opinions presented are those of the author only and not of OUP. If this email has come to you in error, please delete it, along with any attachments. Please note that OUP may intercept incoming and outgoing email communications.