Pronounced: you-kuh-TAS-truh-fee, noun
Notes: I’m guessing that readers will be able to guess this meaning, but I found the origin interesting.
Yesterday’s word
The word pullulate means
- to germinate or sprout; to breed or produce freely
- to swarm or teem
Background
When I thought this might be related to chickens, you can see above that the meaning(s) don’t mention chickens, so I was wrong. However, I was also right because the Latin noun from which this verb comes is pullus, which not only means “sprout”, but also “young of an animal” and specifically, a chick. This Latin root is the source of poult, pullet, and poultry. Our word originally referred to sprouting, budding, and breeding around the farm; the “swarm” meaning came later.
First usage
This word showed up in the early 1600s
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 