Cyme

Pronunciation

• RP enPR: sÄ«m, IPA: /saɪm/

From the French cime, cyme ("top”, “summit"), from the Vulgar Latin cima, from the Latin cȳma ("young sprout of a cabbage”, “spring shoots of cabbage"), from the Ancient Greek κῦμα (kūma, "anything swollen, such as a wave or billow”; “fetus”, “embryo”, “sprout of a plant"), from κύω (kuō, "I conceive”, “I become pregnant”; in the aorist “I impregnate"). For considerably more information, see cyma.

Alternative forms

• cime in the obsolete first sense only, 18th century

Full definition of cyme

Noun

1. (spelt cime, obsolete, rare) A “head” (of unexpanded leaves, etc.); an opening bud.
2. (botany) A flattish or convex flower cluster, of the centrifugal or determinate type, on which each axis terminates with a flower which blooms before the flowers below it. Contrast raceme.
• 1906, Daniel Coit Gilman, , (editors), , article in ,The inflorescence is some form of cyme, and the flowers are usually regular.
• 2003, S. M. Reddy, S. J. Chary, University Botany 2: Gymnosperms, Plant Anatomy, Genetics, Ecology, page 190,The plant bears small groups of two or three yellowish coloured flowers on an axillary cyme.
• 2003, David Curtis Ferree, Ian J. Warrington, Apples: Botany, Production and Uses, page 157,The flower cluster is a cyme (terminal flower is the most advanced), is terminal within the bud and may contain up to six individual flowers.
3. (architecture) = cyma

Derived terms

Related terms

An error for cynne, probably resulting from the overlapping of the two ens in handwriting.

Noun

1. Form of erroneous form