Dieback
noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 The browning and death of a plant shoot starting at the tip, due to either disease or climate conditions.
"The National Trust reports that 30,000 ash trees on its land will have been felled this year owing to ash dieback. “Dieback” sounds like a gentle, seasonal withdrawal. In fact, ash dieback is a devastating disease caused by a fungus, Hymenoscyphus fraxineus, likely to have been carried into the UK on imported ash saplings in the early part of this century."
- 2 a disease of plants characterized by the gradual dying of the young shoots starting at the tips and progressing to the larger branches wordnet
- 3 The withering of a plant, especially the cyclical withering in autumn and winter; distal parts die off but core parts stay alive (and semidormant or dormant).
Example
More examples"One of the causes of forest dieback is acid rain."
Etymology
Deverbal from die back.
Related phrases
More for "dieback"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.