Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The turning or bending movement of an organism or a part of an organism in a particular direction in response to an external stimulus such as light or gravity.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In biology, growth, bending, orientation, or locomotion of organisms, or of parts of organisms, in relation to external agents.
  • noun In a stricter use, the growing or bending of organisms, or of parts of organisms, in relation to external agents.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Physiol.) Modification of the direction of growth, caused by some external influence, such as light; -- sometimes used for motion of an organism toward or away from an external stimulus, more properly called taxis.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun biology the turning of an organism in response to a stimulus, either towards or away from the stimulus
  • noun virology viral tropism, or which type of tissue supports a certain virus

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an involuntary orienting response; positive or negative reaction to a stimulus source

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From –tropism.]

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word tropism.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • hacker tropisms for science fiction, music.

    February 11, 2011