adjective

• 1(of a plant) pale and drawn out due to a lack of light.

  ‘etiolated mung bean seedlings’

  More example sentences

  • ‘These plants continued to grow without light and developed new etiolated leaves.’
  • ‘Exposure of etiolated cereal leaves to red light results in unrolling.’
  • ‘Small amounts of such products have been observed by other groups in protein samples from etiolated barley and wheat seedlings.’
  • ‘Although expression of carotenoid genes does occur in etiolated plants, their synthesis is stimulated on transfer to light.’
  • ‘Flowering continues but decreases through at least three seasons without burning; in long unburned sites, plants are etiolated and flower rarely if at all.’
  • ‘It is found in leaves, etiolated tissues, seeds, roots, fruits, and tubers in the chloroplast as well as in the cytosol.’

  Synonyms

  pale, pallid, ashen, white, white as a sheet, grey

  1. 1.1Having lost vigor or substance; feeble.
     ‘a tone of etiolated nostalgia’
     More example sentences

     • ‘He felt etiolated and unkempt.’
     • ‘Apart from an elongated waist which gave him the look of the etiolated shadow of a much taller man, he was not altogether bad looking.’
     Synonyms

     feeble, weak, insipid, pallid, pale, wishy-washy, vapid, bland, poor, puny, flat, inadequate