Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Nodding; drooping.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Drooping; hanging; having the apex curved or bent down: specifically, in botany, noting less inclination than pendulous; in entomology, said of the head when it is bent down so as to form a right angle with the thorax, as in the crickets.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective (Bot.) Inclining or nodding downward; pendulous; drooping; -- said of a bud, flower, fruit, or the capsule of a moss.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective botany Inclining or nodding
downward ;pendulous ;drooping ; said of abud ,flower , orfruit , or thecapsule of amoss .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective having branches or flower heads that bend downward
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[From Latin cernuus, bowing forward.]
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Latin cernuus with the face turned toward the earth.
Support
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Examples
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As in Cotula y TragopogoH, and moil cernuous flowers.
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The first, a Jude Deveraux romance set in 19th-century South Carolina, tries to use video clips to provide atmosphere, with fluttering shots of cernuous willows and Southern manses set to the book’s narration.
qroqqa commented on the word cernuous
Walking up Redwood Avenue with its tunnel of cernuous willows, Levi found he had lost the will even to nod his head, usually an involuntary habit with him when music was playing.
—Zadie Smith, On Beauty
May 27, 2009
hernesheir commented on the word cernuous
"Forward _____ cars on Yardmaster's card waybill", in railroad telegraphers' shorthand. --US Railway Association, Standard Cipher Code, 1906.
January 21, 2013