Clinostats

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Apparatus that slowly turns a plant on its axis so that gravity cannot consistently act on its growth direction
2. A rotating mounting used in laboratories to hold seedlings or other specimens steadily in motion so they grow without a fixed orientation
3. Instrument that continuously revolves living samples such as plants, neutralizing the directional pull of gravity during experiments

Etymology: Clinostats are devices that slowly rotate a plant so that gravity seems to act on it from every direction at once, and the name is built from two Greek-derived parts. The first, "clino-", comes from the Greek "klinein", meaning "to incline" or "to bend", which also gives English words such as "recline" and "climax" through different routes. The second, "-stat", comes from the Greek "statos", "standing" or "stationary", the same root behind "static" and "thermostat". Put together, the name describes an instrument that keeps something in a constant, inclined or balanced position. Because the word is a technical coinage, it has no ancient Greek use. It was assembled by scientists from classical building blocks, following the familiar pattern of thermostat and similar instrument names. The plural "clinostats" simply refers to more than one such device, which is common in laboratory settings where several plants are tested at once.

Synonyms: clinostat device