What does "semi-trailing" mean?

Having stems thick enough to stand somewhat erect, but eventually drooping like a vine.

Semi-trailing

adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Adjective

1
Having stems thick enough to stand somewhat erect, but eventually drooping like a vine. not-comparable
"The latter method must be used for some varieties that are semi-trailing and for the frankly trailing sorts, such as the dewberry and youngberry."
2
Having a movement that pivots on an access which is at an angle between longitudinal and transverse. not-comparable
"semi-trailing arm suspension"
3
Having an opening syllable that is the continuation of a preceding line and including a syntactic break such as a comma or full stop somewhere after that but before the end. not-comparable
"I have already pointed out a tendency in the semi-trailing and trailing types for attention to be drawn subtly to the switched pair of syllables; this illusory trochaic framework serves at least in the trailing type to focus attention still more on that pair, as a switch. In the few examples we have of the semi-trailing type, the same effect is not always as clear."

"The latter method must be used for some varieties that are semi-trailing and for the frankly trailing sorts, such as the dewberry and youngberry."

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.