I. ˈpälən noun
( -s )
Usage: often attributive
Etymology: Latin pollin-, pollen fine flour, fine dust; akin to Latin pollenta pearl barley, pulvis dust, Greek palē fine meal, dust, poltos porridge, and probably to Sanskrit palala ground sesame seeds
1. obsolete : fine flour or meal
2.
[New Latin pollin-, pollen, from Latin]
a. : a mass of microspores in a seed plant appearing usually as a fine dust made up of minute granular microspores typically formed in fours by reduction of a pollen mother cell with each grain consisting of a single cell that has a characteristically sculptured outer wall and gives rise on germination to a pollen tube through which its male generative element passes to the ovule for fertilization of the egg — compare tetrad
b. : a dusty of pruinous bloom on the body of various insects
II. transitive verb
( -ed/-ing/-s )
: to cover with pollen : pollinate
III.
variant of pollan