Accumbent
adj, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 One who rests in an accumbent position, especially at table.
"What a pennance must be done by every accumbent, in sitting out the passage through all these dishes; what a task the stomach must be put to in the concoction of so many mixtures."
- 1 Leaning or reclining, as the ancients did at their meals.
"Together his accumbent pose and closed eyes denoted sleep, as an alternative to death, which the stiff, recumbent pose of previous effigies had embodied."
- 2 Lying against anything, as one part of a leaf against another leaf
"Distinguished from other genera, with accumbent cotyledons, in the same class and order, by the entire, nearly equal petals; and the dehiscent, nearly entirely pouch, of 2, 1- or many-seeded cells, a broad dissepiment (septum), and nearly flat valves."
- 1 lying down; in a position of comfort or rest wordnet
Example
More examples"Together his accumbent pose and closed eyes denoted sleep, as an alternative to death, which the stiff, recumbent pose of previous effigies had embodied."
Etymology
From Latin accumbō (“recline”), from ad- (“to”) + *cumbō (“recline”).
More for "accumbent"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.