Word.ws English Dictionary

cross-pollinate

cross-pollinate verb: to fertilize by the transfer of pollen from an anther of one plant to the stigma of another.

Verb

cross-pollinate (third-person singular simple present cross-pollinates, present participle cross-pollinating, simple past and past participle cross-pollinated)

  1. (transitive) To fertilize by the transfer of pollen from an anther of one plant to the stigma of another.
  2. (figuratively, transitive) To inspire, stimulate, or influence between diverse elements.

Forms of cross-pollinate

third-person singular presentcross-pollinates
present participlecross-pollinating
past participlecross-pollinated
pastcross-pollinated

Origin of cross-pollinate

From cross- + pollinate.

Words formed from cross-pollinate

Questions about cross-pollinate

What does cross-pollinate mean?
Cross-pollinate means to fertilize by the transfer of pollen from an anther of one plant to the stigma of another.
What part of speech is cross-pollinate?
Cross-pollinate is a verb.
What is the past tense of cross-pollinate?
The past tense of cross-pollinate is cross-pollinated.

Words near cross-pollinate in the dictionary

  1. cross-ply
  2. cross-pol
  3. cross-polarisation
  4. cross-pole
  5. cross-poles
  6. cross-pollinate
  7. cross-pollinated
  8. cross-pollinates
  9. cross-pollinating
  10. cross-pollination
  11. cross-pollinations

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cross-pollinate (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: “cross-pollinate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cross-pollinate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.