Word of the Day

: October 6, 2015

xeric

adjective ZEER-ik

What It Means

: characterized by, relating to, or requiring only a small amount of moisture

xeric in Context

She is a botanist who primarily studies deserts and xeric shrublands.

"As water restrictions were enacted through the metro area, the Kentucky bluegrass in other parts of the park dried up, while the three display beds filled with xeric varieties that don't take much water flourished." — Austin Briggs, The Denver Post, 6 Aug. 2015

Did You Know?

By the late 1800s, botanists were using the terms xerophyte and xerophytic for plants that were well adapted for survival in dry environments. But some felt the need of a more generic word that included both animals and plants. In 1926 that group proposed using xeric (derived from xēros, the Greek word for “dry”) as a more generalized term for either flora or fauna. They further suggested that “xerophytic … be entirely abandoned as useless and misleading.” Not everyone liked the idea. In fact, the Ecological Society of America stated that xeric was “not desirable,” preferring terms such as arid. Others declared that xeric should refer only to habitats, not to organisms. Scientists used it anyway, and by the 1940s xeric was well documented in scientific literature.