Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A method of assuring pollination of various edible figs in which groups of pollen-bearing caprifigs are hung from trees of edible figs of the same species, allowing the fig wasp Blastophaga psenes to carry pollen from the caprifigs to the female flowers of the edible varieties.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A process intended to accelerate the ripening of the fig, and to improve the fruit.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The practice of hanging, upon the cultivated fig tree, branches of the wild fig infested with minute hymenopterous insects.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A process for
pollinating figs by hanging clusters of wild fig flowers (of genus Caprificus) in the trees (pollen being transferred by wasps)
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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The ancients, according to Pliny, were accustomed to hang branches of the wild fig upon the domestic tree, in order that the insects which frequented the former might hasten the ripening of the cultivated fig by their punctures -- or, as others suppose, might fructify it by transporting to it the pollen of the wild fruit -- and this process, called caprification, is not yet entirely obsolete [95].
Earth as Modified by Human Action, The~ Chapter 02 (historical) 1874
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The ancients, according to Pliny, were accustomed to hang branches of the wild fig upon the domestic tree, in order that the insects which frequented the former might hasten the ripening of the cultivated fig by their punctures -- or, as others suppose, might fructify it by transporting to it the pollen of the wild fruit -- and this process, called caprification, is not yet entirely obsolete.
The Earth as Modified by Human Action George P. Marsh 1841
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To remedy this 'the device adopted is caprification.
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After describing caprification in figs, he says το δε επι των φοινικων συμβαινον ου ταυτον μεν, εχει δε τινα ὁμοιοτητα τουτω δι 'ὁ καλουσιν ολυνθαζειν αυτους {to de epi tôn phoinikôn symbainon ou tauton men, echei de tina homoiotêta toutô di' ho kalousin olynthazein autous} 'The same thing is not done with dates, but something analogous to it, whence this is called ολυνθαζειν'
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The sexual system of plants, seems first to have been observed in the fig tree; whose artificial impregnation is taught by Pliny, under the name of caprification.
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 13, No. 370, May 16, 1829 Various
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And since caprification is in fact a marriage of the male fig-tree with the female fig-tree, Mr. Paton further supposes that the loves of the trees may, on the same principle of imitative magic, have been simulated by a mock or even a real marriage between the two human victims, one of whom appears sometimes to have been a woman.
Chapter 58. Human Scapegoats in Classical Antiquity. § 2. The Human Scapegoat in Ancient Greece 1922
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And since caprification is in fact a marriage of the male fig-tree with the female fig-tree, Mr. Paton further supposes that the loves of the trees may, on the same principle of imitative magic, have been simulated by a mock or even a real marriage between the two human victims, one of whom appears sometimes to have been a woman.
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I enquired into the mysteries of caprification, and learned that artificial ripening by means of a drop of oil is practised with some of them, chiefly the _santillo, vollombola, pascarello_ and _natalino.
Old Calabria Norman Douglas 1910
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He points out that the process of caprification, as it is called, that is, the artificial fertilisation of the cultivated fig-trees by hanging strings of wild figs among the boughs, takes place in Greece and Asia Minor in June about a month after the date of the
The Golden Bough James George Frazer 1897
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Thargelia, and he suggests that the hanging of the black and white figs round the necks of the two human victims, one of whom represented the men and the other the women, may have been a direct imitation of the process of caprification designed, on the principle of imitative magic, to assist the fertilisation of the fig-trees.
The Golden Bough James George Frazer 1897
hernesheir commented on the word caprification
Fascinating definition. Reminds me of my first job, whose duties included hand-polliating hydroponically-grown hothouse tomatoes with an electric toothbrush.
December 10, 2010
qms commented on the word caprification
At times it seems they won't give a fig
And look on study as quite infra dig,
But caprification
Brings maturation
And patient labor gets them to twig.
June 10, 2014