pulvinus
pul·vi·nus/pʌlˈvaɪnəs/noun
pulvinus is a noun meaning “A joint on a plant leaf or petiole that may swell and cause movement of the leaf or leaflet” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled P-U-L-V-I-N-U-S and has 3 syllables (pul·vi·nus), and it appears about once in every 55 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of pulvinus is pulvinae or pulvini.
What does pulvinus mean?
noun
- 1
A joint on a plant leaf or petiole that may swell and cause movement of the leaf or leaflet.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce pulvinus?
- /pʌlˈvaɪnəs/
- /pəlˈvaɪnəs/
Pulvinus has 3 syllables, split pul·vi·nus in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of pulvinus
- pulvinae plural
- pulvini plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is pulvinus?
Pulvinus appears about once in every 55 million words in written English, the 231,291st most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Where does pulvinus come from?
Learned borrowing from Latin pulvīnus (“cushion, pillow, bolster”). Doublet of pillow, polverine, pulvino, pulvillus, and pulvinulus, as well as others.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).