deciduous
/dɪˈsɪdjʊəs
/adjective
1(Of a tree or shrub) shedding its leaves annually: sun-loving deciduous trees like aspen...Often contrasted with evergreen.
- For a short while, as the leaves turn on deciduous trees and shrubs, autumn colours command the stage.
- Evergreen trees, including many conifers, support more leaf area than deciduous trees in the same environment.
- Most of the deciduous trees have shed their leaves by mid-December.
1.1 informal (Of a tree or shrub) broadleaved.
1.2Denoting the milk teeth of a mammal, which are shed after a time: this is the period when the deciduous teeth are being shed...
- The first teeth (also known as milk teeth or deciduous teeth) normally start to break through the gum from at around six to nine months old.
- However, the rate of wear in the deciduous teeth seems more or less linear, suggesting a systematic error in the age estimates of the juveniles.
- They did not explain why adult feeding behavior could not be achieved with a smaller deciduous dentition.
Derivatives
deciduously
- Best grown in bright conditions and it will tolerate a slight frost when it will behave deciduously.
- As we pass Glenhead, we can think of writers such as McCormick and Cockett and savour the solitude offered by this deciduously wooded glade.
- In the end, the climate defeated them and all, or most, of the trees behaved, and still behave, deciduously.
deciduousness
- Winters were long and dark in those days and trees needed to have mechanisms to survive… so deciduousness in those conditions was a real benefit.
- Overall light absorption by the whole canopy remains high despite deciduousness in the overstorey.
- The flooded area had greater deciduousness because it has a proportionally greater number of totally or partially deciduous species.
Origin
Late 17th century: from Latin deciduus (from decidere 'fall down or off') + -ous.