🧽 To peel off 🌱 To grow leaves

to exfoliate

7.5

To grow new leaves, like trees in spring

verb
/ɛksˈfoʊliˌeɪt/

: exfoliar

During the growth season, many species of trees will exfoliate their bark to allow for new growth.

Examples

As the weather warms, plants begin to exfoliate, revealing fresh, green foliage.
It is deeply, deeply, deeply exfoliates the leaf skin.
It exfoliates.

For Love of the Game (1999)
In spring, the tree will exfoliate its old leaves and produce new ones.

Surface Forms

exfoliate infinitive

exfoliated past

exfoliated past participle

exfoliating present participle

exfoliates third person singular

Morphology

exfoliate = foliate (opaque) = ex + foli + ate

For this stated sense, adding 'ex-' to 'foliate' does not transparently yield the meaning 'produce or unfold leaves'.

Etymology

Exfoliate comes from Latin parts ex- 'out' and folium 'leaf'. So, for plants it originally meant to put 'leaves' out or to 'leaf out', which is why exfoliate can mean to grow or unfold new leaves.