January 6, 2017

Etiolate – Friday’s Word of the Day Haiku

By Kat Myrman


Happy Friday! It has been a crazy week! Long hours at work and winter weather descending in my corner of the planet. Today’s Dictionary.com word of the day is Etoliate.

Etiolate definition is

1. to cause to become weakened or sickly; drain of color or vigor.
2. to cause (a plant) to whiten or grow pale by excluding light: to etiolate celery.
3. (of plants) to whiten or grow pale through lack of light.

It originated in 18th century France from the French verb étioler “to makepale, etiolate (plants),” probably derivative of aNorman French dialect form of standard Frenchéteule, from Old French estoble, estuble “stubble,”from Latin stipula “stalk, straw.”

Etiolate is a verb associated with biology and a plant condition called chlorosis caused by a lack of sun light resulting in low levels of chlorophyll. De-etiolation is what we call “greening”. The first pale shoots of a seed eventually break free from the ground and stretch toward the light of the sun, exposed and free of darkness where photosynthesis can happen. Where greening can happen.

Interestingly, the term etiolate is also used to describe people. Which makes sense. It is true that a lack of light can cause humankind to grow pale, fade, become depressed and lethargic. We have a name for it. It’s called SAD, an acronym for Seasonal Affective Disorder. Shorter days and long dark cold nights contribute to our etiolation.

A timely word, don’t you think? I had never heard it before, but I have witnessed and felt the affects of etiolation. Reminds me that we are all connected…animal, vegetable, mineral. That thought makes me happy, which is an apt remedy for my bout with SAD. Or maybe sometines I’m just sad…

Is it spring yet?

It’s been a long week! TGIF! In the meantime, a few Haiku. It is late and I am etiolating fast! 😉

the sum of our parts
etiolate from neglect…
use it or lose it


flowers and people
suffer etiolation
it is really SAD

kat ~ 6 January 2016

This entry was posted on Friday, January 6th, 2017 at 9:37 pm and tagged with , , and posted in Haiku, Poetry, Random Thoughts and Musings, Word of the Day Haiku. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

13 responses to “Etiolate – Friday’s Word of the Day Haiku”

Leave a reply to finnegandaley Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.