Word.ws English Dictionary

brachysm

brachysm noun: unusually small size resulting from the shortening of internodes.

Noun

brachysm (uncountable)

  1. Unusually small size resulting from the shortening of internodes.
    • Some forms of disordered growth have been recognized in the United States, such as tomosis or leafcut, and brachysm or shortening of the internodes of the fruiting branches.1916, US Bureau of Plant Industry, Report of the Chief, page 23
    • In teosinte there is no such indication of brachysm, all branches having elongated internodes. The first indication of the contamination of teosinte with maize is in the direction of brachysm, as instanced by a shortening of the pistillate rachis, resulting in displacing the alignment of the seeds...1924, Journal of Agricultural Research, volume 27, page 578

Examples of brachysm in a sentence

  • In teosinte there is no such indication of brachysm, all branches having elongated internodes.1924, Journal of Agricultural Research, volume 27, page 578:
  • The intermittent brachysm of line 59 was recessive to the non-brachytic, normal condition.1957, Proceedings of the American Society for Horticultural Science, volume 70, page 102:

Origin of brachysm

From Ancient Greek βραχύς (brakhús, “short”); compare brachy-.

Questions about brachysm

What does brachysm mean?
Brachysm means unusually small size resulting from the shortening of internodes.
How do you use brachysm in a sentence?
In teosinte there is no such indication of brachysm, all branches having elongated internodes.
What part of speech is brachysm?
Brachysm is a noun.

Words near brachysm in the dictionary

  1. brachyrhynchus
  2. brachys
  3. brachysclereid
  4. brachysclereids
  5. brachyskelic
  6. brachysm
  7. brachyspiral
  8. brachystaphylin
  9. brachystaphyline
  10. brachystelechid
  11. brachystelechids

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: brachysm (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “brachysm.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/brachysm. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.