Word.ws English Dictionary

pelorism

pelorism noun: an abnormality in plants where the flower appears to revert to an earlier form.

Noun

pelorism (uncountable)

  1. An abnormality in plants where the flower appears to revert to an earlier form.
    • In my last paper I dwelt chiefly on the remarkable phenomenon of pelorism and what can be learned from it as to the pace of organic change.1903, Monthly review: Volume 10
    • The extent of pelorism can be environmentally influenced. Should we be awarding peloric orchids without evidence of reproducible flowering?1995, American Orchid Society bulletin: Volume 64, Issue 4

Origin of pelorism

From Ancient Greek πέλωρ (pélōr, “monster”) + -ism.

Questions about pelorism

What does pelorism mean?
Pelorism means an abnormality in plants where the flower appears to revert to an earlier form.
What part of speech is pelorism?
Pelorism is a noun.

Words near pelorism in the dictionary

  1. peloridiid
  2. peloridiids
  3. pelories
  4. pelorisation
  5. pelorised
  6. pelorism
  7. pelorization
  8. pelorized
  9. pelorus
  10. peloruses
  11. peloruside

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pelorism (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.

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