Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Allelopathy
/əˌliːˈlɒpəθi/noun
The release of chemicals by one plant that helps or hinders another growing nearby.
The Greek roots
ἀλλήλων
allḗlōn
of one another
πάθος
páthos
suffering, experience
Literally: “suffering from one another”
The story of the word
Hans Molisch put the word into print in 1937 for the chemistry plants practise on each other. Walnut roots leak juglone, and the tomatoes planted under the tree quietly fail. The first half is ἀλλήλων, of one another, which also sits inside parallel, παράλληλος, two lines lying alongside each other.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → German scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1937
Same family
parallelsympathypathologytelepathyapathy
In a sentence
Gardeners tend to learn allelopathy the hard way, usually under a black walnut.
The trial had to separate allelopathy from simple competition for light.