pollen

Syllables: pol·lenUK/ˈpɒlən//ˈpɑlən/

pollen noun: a fine, granular substance produced in flowers.

Image: Frank Vincentz, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

pollen (usually uncountable, plural pollens)

(usually) A fine, granular substance produced in flowers.
(usually) Pollen grains (microspores) produced in the anthers of flowering plants.
- In plants, the ability to recognize self from nonself plays an important role in fertilization, because self-fertilization will result in less diverse offspring than fertilization with pollen from another individual.2013 May–June, Katrina G. Claw, “Rapid Evolution in Eggs and Sperm”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3
(obsolete, usually) Fine powder in general, fine flour.
- and ther was good wyne of Gascoyne,[…]as well of pollen, as of other vitailes1523–1525, John Bourchier, 2nd Baron Berners, Froissart's Chronicles, translation of original by Jean Froissart
- The bran, pollen and gurgions of this grain will be profitable to the miller; […]1796, C. Lorimer, A Letter to the Honourable the Corn Commitee, on the Importation of Rough Rice, as a Supplement to Wheat Flour, London: […] T[homas] Becket, […], →OCLC, page 5

Verb

pollen (third-person singular simple present pollens, present participle pollening, simple past and past participle pollened)

(poetic, transitive) To cover with, or as if with, pollen.

pollen meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

pollen in Hindi

fine granular substance produced in flowers: पराग parāg, रेणुका reṇukā

pollen in Tamil

fine granular substance produced in flowers: மகரந்தம் makarantam

pollen in Marathi

परागकण

pollen in Urdu

زر

More languagesFewer languages

pollen in Bengali: পরাগ porag
pollen in Telugu: పరాగరేణువు parāgarēṇuvu
pollen in Malayalam: പൂമ്പൊടി pūmpoṭi
pollen in Kannada: ಪರಾಗ parāga
pollen in Punjabi: ਪਰਾਗ parāg
pollen in Gujarati: પરાગ parāg
pollen in Odia: ଧୂଳି dhuḷi
pollen in Assamese: ৰেণু renu
pollen in Tagalog: mawo
pollen in Arabic: حُبُوبُ اللِّقَاح ḥubūbu l-liqāḥ, حُبُوبُ الطَّلْع ḥubūbu ṭ-ṭalʕ
pollen in Malay: debunga
pollen in Indonesian: polen, serbuk sari
pollen in Thai: เรณู ree-nuu, ละอองเรณู lá-ɔɔng-ree-nuu, เกสร gee-sɔ̌ɔn
pollen in Vietnamese: phấn, phấn hoa

Examples of pollen in a sentence

You should wear a pair of swimming goggles because of all the pollen.
The pollen grains are tricolpate to tricolporoidate.
Pollen, dust, and spores are common allergens.

All 40 example sentences with pollen

Forms of pollen

Noun
plural	pollens
Verb
third-person singular present	pollens
present participle	pollening
past participle	pollened
past	pollened

Plural of pollen: pollens

Origin of pollen

Learned borrowing from Latin pollen (“fine flour”), used by Carl Linnaeus in the 18th century to describe the spores produced in the anthers of flowers.

Words formed from pollen

Phrases with pollen

Words that rhyme with pollen

stollen

Questions about pollen

What does pollen mean?: Pollen means a fine, granular substance produced in flowers.
What is pollen in Hindi?: Pollen in Hindi is पराग (parāg), रेणुका (reṇukā). See Pollen meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is pollen?: Pollen can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce pollen?: Pollen is pronounced /ˈpɒlən/ (UK).
What is the plural of pollen?: The plural of pollen is pollens.

Words near pollen in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: pollen (page history and authors); pollen (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); pollen (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ଧୂଳି (Odia) (page history and authors); ৰেণু (Assamese) (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-pollen.ogg.

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