A.Word.A.Day --lignify

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lignify

PRONUNCIATION:

(LIG-nuh-fy)

MEANING:

verb tr.: To convert into wood.
verb intr.: To become wood or woody.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin lignum (wood). Ultimately from the Indo-European root leg- (to collect), which is also the source of lexicon, legal, dialogue, lecture, logic, legend, logarithm, intelligent, diligent, sacrilege, elect, and loyal. Earliest documented use: 1828.

USAGE:

"Many leguminous plants offer edible products in addition to their seeds. Many of their immature pods are edible two or three weeks before the fibres lignify to render them inedible."
Lam Peng Sam; Make Your Landscape Edible; The New Straits Times (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia); Dec 2, 2000.

See more usage examples of lignify in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

We grow tyrannical fighting tyranny. The most alarming spectacle today is not the spectacle of the atomic bomb in an unfederated world, it is the spectacle of the Americans beginning to accept the device of loyalty oaths and witchhunts, beginning to call anybody they don't like a Communist. -E.B. White, writer (1899-1985)

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