Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A small stalk or stalklike part bearing a single flower in an inflorescence.
  • noun A support for a fern sporangium or moss capsule.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In botany, the ultimate division of a common peduncle; the stalk that supports one flower only when there are several on a peduncle.
  • noun In zoology and anatomy, a little foot or foot-like part; a footlet; a footstalk, pedicle, or peduncle.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A stalk which supports one flower or fruit, whether solitary or one of many ultimate divisions of a common peduncle. See peduncle, and Illust. of flower.
  • noun A slender support of any special organ, as that of a capsule in mosses, an air vesicle in algæ, or a sporangium in ferns.
  • noun (Zoöl.) A slender stem by which certain of the lower animals or their eggs are attached. See Illust. of Aphis lion.
  • noun The ventral part of each side of the neural arch connecting with the centrum of a vertebra.
  • noun An outgrowth of the frontal bones, which supports the antlers or horns in deer and allied animals.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun botany A stalk of individual flower; a stalk bearing a single flower or spore-producing body within a cluster.
  • noun anatomy A stalk-shaped body part; an anatomical part that resembles a stem or stalk.
  • noun zoology A narrow stalk-like body part in insects and other arthropods, used in various specific senses.
  • noun mycology a slender stalk

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a small stalk bearing a single flower of an inflorescence; an ultimate division of a common peduncle

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[New Latin pedicellus, diminutive of Latin pediculus, diminutive of pēs, ped-, foot; see ped- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From post-classical Latin pedicellus, from Latin pediculus.

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Examples

  • a common short branchlet, loosely imbricate, distichous and shortly stipitate and the stipe with a purple thickening; pedicel is short, 1/24 to 1/12 inch with sometimes long deciduous hairs and the tip somewhat thickened.

    A Handbook of Some South Indian Grasses K. Rangachari

  • The small brown "eye," called the pedicel, at the base of each kernel can be removed with the thumbnail or small scissors.

    Nixtamal Para Pozole: Pozole Corn 2005

  • _pedicelled spikelet_ is as long as the sessile, inarticulate on the very thick, short pedicel which is densely or sparsely hairy at the base.

    A Handbook of Some South Indian Grasses K. Rangachari

  • It is a question of a little more green here, a slightly sharper indent there, a hint of variegation on a leaf or pedicel.

    In praise of … snowdrops | Editorial 2012

  • Var. angustifolia; leaves linear; calyx and pedicel glabrous; corolla outside glabrous or scantily hairy.

    The Journals of John McDouall Stuart 2007

  • “Gulgong” (EUCALYPTUS ROBUSTA), the pedicel of which is twirled between the thumb and second finger.

    My Tropic Isle 2003

  • As the traveler rotated, this extended pedicel began to swing in great arcs, even though there was no wind.

    Into the Thinking Kingdoms Foster, Alan Dean, 1946- 1999

  • As the traveler rotated, this extended pedicel began to swing in great arcs, even though there was no wind.

    Into the Thinking Kingdoms Foster, Alan Dean, 1946- 1999

  • Including a little of the stem, or pedicel, directly above the fruit when harvesting it helps reduce spoiling (Figure 15.2).

    14. Saving seeds for planting 1991

  • The flowers are small (though larger than those of many cultivated yams), about 3 mm long, closely appressed to the pedicel in long axillary or terminal racemes.

    Chapter 37 1987

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