arborise

present singular third person arborises · participle present arborising · participle past arborised · past arborised · alternative British English Oxford US arborize

1. intransitiveTo develop a tree-like appearance.

   The nerve fibre arborises into multiple branches.

   2 more examples

   Either in the spinal medulla or in the brain stem the axons end by arborising round nerve-cells and the impulses which they convey are transferred to these upper neurones.

   1915, T. B. Johnston, chapter 1, in Medical Applied Anatomy,, London: A. and C. Black, page 4

   A hierarchy […] is not like a row of organ pipes; it is like a tree, arborizing downward.

   1964, Arthur Koestler, The Act of Creation, New York: Macmillan, Book 2, Chapter 2, p. 433

2. transitiveTo cause (something) to develop a tree-like appearance.

   His seven-year-old brain fires and rewires, building arborized axons, dendrites, those tiny spreading trees.

   2018, Richard Powers, The Overstory, New York: Norton

   1 more example

   Tall, wide shrubs take up a huge amount of space in a small garden, so remove the lower limbs to provide more space underneath. […] When you “arborize” the shrub by limbing it up, you’ll discover an elegant, multi-trunked structure […]

   2008, Jen Weaverling, editor, Creative Flower Gardening, Minnetonka, MN: National Home Gardening Club, page 128

3. transitiveTo penetrate or fill (an area) with a tree-like structure.

   The vessels penetrate the clavipectoral fascia […]. They then arborize the underside of the pectoralis major.

   1991, Donald G. McQuarrie, “Techniques of Resection and Reconstruction for Tongue and Mouth Cancer”, in John S. Najarian, John P. Delaney, editors, Progress in Cancer Surgery, St. Louis: Mosby, page 254

   1 more example

   The imitation neurones I am composed of agitate their dendrites like mad ganglia that arborize the system as the cell bodies dance along the axis cylinder within the fibres of the foot that isn’t there […]

   1967, Christine Brooke-Rose, “The Foot”, in Susan Williams, Richard Glyn Jones, editors, The Penguin Book of Modern Fantasy by Women, London: Penguin, published 1996, page 187