rootstock

English

Etymology

root +‎ stock

Noun

rootstock (plural rootstocks)

  1. (agriculture) 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.
    Synonym: rootstalk
  2. (figurative, by extension) The necessary basis for something to develop.
    • 2009 January 30, Simon Jenkins, “For real secrets we already have the one-and-a-half-year memoir rule”, in The Guardian‎:
      We know more - vastly more - about how we are governed, and that knowledge is the rootstock of consent.

Translations

Further reading
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