Word.ws English Dictionary

spinifex

spinifex noun: any of numerous species of grass in genus Spinifex, growing in sand dunes.

spinifex: any of numerous species of grass in genus Spinifex, growing in sand dunes
Image: Hesperian, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

spinifex (countable and uncountable, plural spinifexes)

  1. Any of numerous species of grass in genus Spinifex, growing in sand dunes.
  2. (Australia) Any of several spiny grass species of the genus Triodia, endemic to arid outback Australia.
    • And there will be Ethel watching, just standing there, stirring something on the kitchen stove, or dusting the mahogany sideboard, or polishing the silver, and looking out the window, staring, just staring, as though she were watching the spinifex growing, or the sky hanging there, just staring...1996, Janette Turner Hospital, Oyster, Virago Press, paperback edition, page 269

Adjective

spinifex (comparative more spinifex, superlative most spinifex)

  1. Composed of dendritic plates, which present as the scored texture of bundled, spine-like structures typical of komatiites.

Forms of spinifex

Noun
pluralspinifexes
Adjective
comparativemore spinifex
superlativemost spinifex

Origin of spinifex

From translingual Spinifex (genus name), from Latin spina (“spine”) + Latin -fex (“maker”) (from Latin facere (“to make”)).

Words formed from spinifex

Phrases with spinifex

Questions about spinifex

What does spinifex mean?
Spinifex means any of numerous species of grass in genus Spinifex, growing in sand dunes.
What part of speech is spinifex?
Spinifex can be a noun or an adjective.
What is the plural of spinifex?
The plural of spinifex is spinifexes.

Words near spinifex in the dictionary

  1. spinicaudatans
  2. spinier
  3. spinies
  4. spiniest
  5. spiniferous
  6. spinifex
  7. spinifex pigeon
  8. spinifex pigeons
  9. spinifex termite
  10. spinifex termites
  11. spinifexbird

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: spinifex (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:

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

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