Soft, tender, or delicate in texture; used in botanical and zoological contexts to describe something fragile or easily damaged.
From Greek 'hapalos' meaning 'soft' or 'tender,' derived from the Indo-European root *kep- meaning 'to grasp' (implying something soft that yields to grasping).
Scientists love Greek root words like 'hapale' because they sound precise and technical while being genuinely ancient—a 2,000-year-old word suddenly describing a newly discovered frog species.
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