rootstock
nounEtymology From root + stock.
1
Agriculture, Business, Lifestyle A healthy and vigorous-rooted plant that is used in grafting, most commonly as a sound base to support a scion that bears desirable fruit in orchard culture.
2
Broadly, Figuratively The necessary basis for something to develop.
- We know more - vastly more - about how we are governed, and that knowledge is the rootstock of consent.2009 January 30, Simon Jenkins, “For real secrets we already have the one-and-a-half-year memoir rule”, in The Guardian: