racines

Racines is the French term for roots. In broad use it denotes origins or supporting elements from which something grows or derives, and it appears in several disciplines with specialized meanings.

Botany: The root system anchors a plant in soil, absorbs water and minerals, and stores nutrients. Roots have tissues such as the epidermis and vascular cylinder, and they may form taproot or fibrous systems. They often interact with soil organisms, including mycorrhizal fungi, to improve nutrient uptake.

Mathematics: A root is a value that satisfies an equation or makes a function equal to zero. Examples include the square root and cube root. For polynomials, roots are solutions to P(x) = 0; the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra states a polynomial of degree n has, counting multiplicities, n complex roots. Root-finding methods include factoring, the quadratic formula, and numerical algorithms.

Linguistics: The root (racine) of a word is its base form from which related words are derived by affixes or inflection. Roots carry core semantic content, while morphology adds grammatical or lexical information. Etymology studies the historical development of roots and their cognates across languages.