Since 1992
Print and digital marketing
By Barbara McAllister
Word of the Day: Pullulate
Spring is the favorite season of many, and has its own words devoted specifically to the season. Many of these words came from the Latin word vernus, meaning “pertaining to spring,” as in vernal pools and the vernal equinox. Also included is the archaic “vernate,” a word no longer in use that means to make young again. Pullulate (pronounced PULL u late) is another spring word that means to germinate or sprout. It also means to breed, produce freely or swarm, as in flowers pullulate in the spring as bees pullulate and the yard pullulates with weeds. If pullulate sounds like pullet or poultry, it all comes from the Latin “pullus,” meaning young animal. Pullus started out meaning any breeding or animal offspring around the farm and eventually became connected to fowl and the notion of rapid reproduction and swarming. Today the word pullulate is most likely to be encountered when it refers to swarming, or teeming with activity. A recent news report referred to “Washington, D.C., pullulating with rumors,” and a food critic mentioned a dish “pullulating with sweet potato noodles.”
The related, but less heard, “repullulate,” means to spring or bud anew and is another of the archaic words related to spring. It joins “egerminate,” an old-fashioned word for germinate, which most dictionaries don’t recognize, although most recognize “degerminate” and “regerminate.” Words become obsolete as they are replaced by other words or lose their meaning. An archaic way of stating that spring makes people feel young and flowers sprout might be to say that spring makes people vernate and flowers egerminate. Spring also makes black flies and tax returns repullulate.
