Cyme
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A “head” (of unexpanded leaves, etc.); an opening bud. obsolete, rare
- 2 Misspelling of senna. alt-of, misspelling
- 3 more or less flat-topped cluster of flowers in which the central or terminal flower opens first wordnet
- 4 A flattish or convex flower cluster, of the centrifugal or determinate type, on which each axis terminates with a flower which blooms before the flowers below it.
"The inflorescence is some form of cyme, and the flowers are usually regular."
- 5 A cyma.
Example
More examples"The inflorescence is some form of cyme, and the flowers are usually regular."
Etymology
] Borrowed from French cime, cyme (“top, summit”), from Vulgar Latin *cima, from Latin cȳma (“young sprout of a cabbage”, “spring shoots of cabbage”), from Ancient Greek κῦμα (kûma, “anything swollen, such as a wave or billow”; “fetus”, “embryo”, “sprout of a plant”), from κύω (kúō, “I conceive”, “I become pregnant”; in the aorist “I impregnate”). For considerably more information, see cyma, which is an etymological doublet. Compare also Frankish *kīmō (“sprout”), from Proto-Germanic *kīmô, whence German Keim (“sprout”).
An error for cynne, probably resulting from the overlapping of the two ens in handwriting.
Related phrases
More for "cyme"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.