thallus

See also: Thallus

English

Etymology

From Ancient Greek θαλλός (thallós, “young shoot, twig”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰelh₁- (“to bloom”).

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈθæl.əs/
• Rhymes: -æləs

Noun

thallus (plural thalluses or thalli)

1. (botany) An undifferentiated plant body, such as in algae.
   • 1854 August 9, Henry D[avid] Thoreau, “Spring”, in Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC:

     As it flows it takes the forms of sappy leaves or vines, making heaps of pulpy sprays a foot or more in depth, and resembling, as you look down on them, the laciniated, lobed, and imbricated thalluses of some lichens; […]

2. (botany) Any plant body lacking vascular tissue.

Related terms

• thalliform
• thalline
• thallodal
• thalloid
• Thallobionta
• Thallophyta
• thallophyte
• thallose

Translations

thallus

• Bulgarian: талус m (talus)
• Dutch: thallus (nl) m or n
• Finnish: sekovarsi
• French: thalle (fr) m
• German: Thallus m
• Hungarian: telep (hu)
• Ido: talo (io)
• Italian: tallo m
• Polish: plecha (pl) f
• Sicilian: taḍḍu m
• Volapük: talut

Dutch

Etymology

From Ancient Greek θαλλός (thallós). The gender is often neuter in Dutch (even though de thallus is also commonly encountered), whereas in the Greek and in other languages the word is male.

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

thallus n or m (plural thalli)

1. thallus

Further reading

• thallus on the Dutch Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^nl