defoliateverb [ T ]
uk/ˌdiːˈfəʊ.li.eɪt/us/ˌdiːˈfoʊ.li.eɪt/to make the leaves drop off a plant, especially by using strong chemicals
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Removing and getting rid of things
- abandon
- banish
- be scattered to the four winds idiom
- bin
- cast sb/sth aside/away/off
- fling sth/sb out
- flush sth out
- fly-tipping
- free sb from/of sth
- haemodialysis
- junk
- pension
- scrap
- shuffle
- throw the baby out with the bathwater idiom
- toss sth aside
- toss sth out
- turf sth out
- unplug
- weed
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defoliation
noun [ U ] uk/ˌdiː.fəʊ.liˈeɪ.ʃən/us/ˌdiː.foʊ.liˈeɪ.ʃən/
Examples from literature
- Many small trees have been entirely stripped and large ones almost defoliated.
- My trees that I go to inspect every two or three weeks, at one inspection would be leafing out, at the next would be defoliated.
- Several years ago the beet fields in the vicinity of Grand Island were threatened great injury by a certain caterpillar that had nearly defoliated all the beets growing in many of them.
- The locust miner is a beetle which is now annually defoliating trees of this species in large numbers.