Pullulant

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Characterized by an abundant or excessive growth rate, it denotes a condition of thriving and proliferation in living organisms or ecological settings
2. Showing an unusually fast and plentiful development especially in biological contexts
3. Describing something that grows or spreads quickly and abundantly, often used in reference to organisms

Etymology: Pullulant comes from Latin "pullulare," meaning "to sprout" or "to breed," a verb built from "pullulus," a diminutive of "pullus," young animal or chick. The Latin verb's sense was of things multiplying and budding rather than of anything grand, and the image is literal: shoots pushing up, young creatures swarming forth. The English adjective is a learned borrowing from that Latin verb's present participle, "pullulans," which took on the sense of teeming or swarming with life. It is a word that stayed largely in scholarly and literary use, which is why it still feels somewhat rare, though its roots are entirely ordinary. The connection to "pullet," a young hen, is real: both descend from the same Latin base "pullus," young animal, so a word for swarming growth shares its ancestry with a word for a chick.