botanize

present singular third person botanizes · participle present botanizing · participle past botanized · past botanized · alternative botanise

1. To do the work of a botanist, as to inventory the plant life in an area and to collect plants for research purposes.

   1770, Joseph Banks, The Endeavour Journal of Sir Joseph Banks, entry for 1770 January 22. http://gutenberg.net.au/plusfifty.html#banks Dr Solander and Myself were botanizing

   4 more examples

   When he was not studying, he was botanizing or mineralogizing with O'Toole's chaplain.

   1809, Maria Edgeworth, Ennui

   'Tis best when Frank takes his cousin ashore, / She loves botanising, / While Sissy who's left, can handle an oar / In a manner surprising.

   1878 June, “Ludovic” [pseudonym], “Epicene Boating”, in The Kentish Magazine, number II, Maidstone, Kent: Burgiss-Brown, […]; London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co., […], →OCLC, page 63

   The only compensation he could get seems to have been to botanize and zoologize, as it were, on his visitors.

   1866, John Holmes Agnew, Walter Hilliard, The Eclectic Magazine, volume IV, page 188

   There it erects tents capable of holding about one hundred and fifty people, and there the members and their friends gather for a fortnight to climb mountains, botanize, zoologize, or merely enjoy life.

   1931, Marie Beuzeville Byles, By Cargo Boat & Mountain, page 141