plumule
Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
plumule /ˈpluːmjuːl/
▶noun
- 1 Botany the rudimentary shoot or stem of an embryo plant.
- 2 Ornithology a bird's down feather, numbers of which form an insulating layer under the contour feathers.
– origin C18: from Fr. plumule or L. plumula ‘small feather’, dimin. of pluma ‘down’.
'plumule' also found in these Oxford entries:
