The building blocks of English

Affixes

-petal

Seeking; moving towards.

Latin petus, seeking, from petere, seek.

The most common term in this ending is centripetal, moving or tending to move towards a centre, the opposite of centrifugal. In botany, growth or development that is basipetal is downwards towards the base or point of attachment, its opposite being acropetal (Greek akron, tip); corticopetal refers to something originating outside the cerebral cortex and running into it.