scrambling
adjEtymology (linguistics): Coined by American linguist John R. Ross in 1967.
Confused and irregular; awkward; scambling.
- A huge old scrambling bedroom.1826, [Walter Scott], Woodstock; Or, The Cavalier. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, →OCLC:
Biology, Botany, Natural sciences Having a stem too weak to support itself, instead attaching to and relying on the stems or trunks of stronger plants.
- All three types of climbing organs here demonstrated for Late Palaeozoic seed ferns are also found in modern angiosperms. This leads to the conclusion that several taxa of Late Palaeozoic seed ferns were well-adapted to climbing and scrambling growth habits.1998, Kerp with Hans and Michael Krings, “Climbing and scrambling growth habits: common life strategies among Late Carboniferous seed ferns”, in Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences (IIA-Earth and Planetary Science 326.8), pages 583-588:
- Derived terms
- scrambling dragon