Term
inflorescence
Thirteen letters, five syllables, and a silent consonant sitting in the middle of the ending. Inflorescence goes wrong at the sc more than anywhere else, and the rest of the trouble is the unstressed vowels on either side of the stress.
Latin inflorescere, to begin to blossom, from flos, floris, flower. The -escere ending marks the start of something, and it arrives in English as -escence in a whole family of words: convalescence, effervescence, luminescence, adolescence. In every one of them the sc says a single s.
- Say
- in-flor-ESS-uhnss
- Letters
- I-N-F-L-O-R-E-S-C-E-N-C-E
- Root
- Latin inflorescere, to begin to bloom
- Meaning
- An inflorescence is the whole flowering shoot: the arrangement of flowers on their stalks together with the axis that carries them. A spike, an umbel, a corymb and a thyrse are all inflorescences.
11 spellings people arrive at by ear
- inflorescensea soft c
- inflorrescencea doubled consonant
- inflorescancean unstressed vowel
- inflor escenceheard as two words
- innflorescencea doubled consonant
- infloressencea soft c
- infloresscencea doubled consonant
- inflorescenncea doubled consonant
- inflerescencean unstressed vowel
- inflarescencean unstressed vowel
- inflorescenca silent e