growth ring

noun
annual ring.
Origin:
1905–10

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Collins
World English Dictionary
growth ring
 
—n
another name for annual ring

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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00:10
Growth ring is always a great word to know.
So is interrobang. Does it mean:
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
a screen or mat covered with a dark material for shielding a camera lens from excess light or glare.
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American Heritage
Science Dictionary
growth ring  


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  1. A layer of wood formed in a plant during a single period of growth. Growth rings are visible as concentric circles of varying width when a tree is cut crosswise. They represent layers of cells produced by vascular cambium. ◇ Most growth rings reflect a full year's growth and are called annual rings. But abrupt changes in the environment, especially in the availability of water, can cause a plant to produce more than one growth ring in a year. See more at dendrochronology.

  2. A similar layer in a part of an animal marking a period of growth, such as an annulus in a fish scale.


The American Heritage® Science Dictionary
Copyright © 2002. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.
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Example sentences
Each couplet of twin bands was considered to be a distinct growth ring.
The ring closest to the center of the tree is the oldest growth ring.
Legal scallops possess a defined, raised, annual growth ring.
Bore the dominant conifer trees within the riparian zone and average the growth
  ring counts.
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