semi-trailing

Adjective

semi-trailing (not comparable)

1. Having stems thick enough to stand somewhat erect, but eventually drooping like a vine.
   • The latter method must be used for some varieties that are semi-trailing and for the frankly trailing sorts, such as the dewberry and youngberry.1957, Norman Taylor, Garden Guide, page 423
   • 'Marion's Enchanted Trail' ( Pittman ) tends more toward the semi-trailing type, freely producing many crowns from which absolute masses of medium blue blooms are produced.1999, African Violet Magazine - Volume 52, page 15
2. Having a movement that pivots on an access which is at an angle between longitudinal and transverse.
   • semi-trailing arm suspension
   • Swivelling of these semi-trailing arms is therefore neither true transverse or true trailing but is a combination of both.2002, Heinz Heisler, Advanced Vehicle Technology, page 397
3. (verse) Having an opening syllable that is the continuation of a preceding line and including a syntactic break such as a comma or full stop somewhere after that but before the end.
   • I have already pointed out a tendency in the semi-trailing and trailing types for attention to be drawn subtly to the switched pair of syllables; this illusory trochaic framework serves at least in the trailing type to focus attention still more on that pair, as a switch. In the few examples we...2001, David Keppel-Jones, Strict Metrical Tradition, page 79