Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A genus of beautiful tropical American trees, with milky juice, natural order Urticaceæ. C. peltata, the trumpet-tree, is remarkable for its hollow stem and branches, the former being made by the Indians into a kind of drum and the latter into wind-instruments. The light porous wood is used by them for procuring fire by friction. The inner bark is fibrous and strong, and is used for cordage.
- n. [lowercase] In entomology, a moth, Attacus cecropia.
Wiktionary
- n. A silkworm moth, Hyalophora cecropia, native to North America, having red white and black markings
WordNet 3.0
- n. large genus of tropical American trees that yield a bast fiber used for cordage and bark used in tanning; milky juice yields caoutchouc
- n. North American silkworm moth; larvae feed on the leaves of forest trees
Examples
“He called the cecropia fruit mangimeowe and noted that it is eaten and dispersed by toucans and piping guans.”
“We duck under a wasp nest hanging low from a kapok, and see a great black hawk draping its wings in the sun on the top of a cecropia.”
“He will live in one type of tree, eat one sort of food product, eat cecropia leaves.”
“Thankfully, the rain did not resume as they sat down next to one another beneath the ample bole of a big cecropia to wait for morning.”
“Late in the day, just after we had feasted on the fruits of a wild cacao, we came upon a three-toed sloth climbing slowly through the upper branches of a cecropia tree.”
“Fired at one end, the burning resin tube was inserted into piles of cecropia ash and blown vigorously so that the myrrhlike aroma permeated the ash, thus flavoring the coca.”
“Every species of cecropia has living within the hollow nodes of its trunk a distinct species of fire ant.”
“Ernesto, meanwhile, carefully swept a portion of the dirt floor and fired a large pile of dry cecropia leaves, two varieties known in Cubeo as juakubu and opodokabú.”
“Close to where I had hung my hammock, Rufino kindled a fire to toast coca while his son reduced cecropia leaves to ash and prepared the mortar and pestle.”
“In the light of dusk one can finally discern shapes in the forest, sloths clinging to the limbs of cecropia trees, vipers entwined in branches, tapir wallowing in distant sloughs.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘cecropia’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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Outlander series words
A place for me to keep words I found (or found anew) while reading Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series. (Culling my enormous "Learned (or Encountered) in Reading" list.)
gralloch, yeuk, corpse-candle, saprophytic, baldachin, Kermanshah, celandine, tynchal, quaich, mesentery, basidium, dittany and 244 more...
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Trees!
mahogany, sequoia, balsa, sandalwood, tamarind, balsam, eucalyptus, birch, willow, buttonwood, evergreen, loblolly and 501 more...
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bark
liminal space forms
cinnamon, sycamore, ponderosa, Leucadendron arge..., cork, cinchona, angostura, barque, sassafras, arf, yip, quebracho and 94 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for cecropia.
chained_bear "While the road was shaded by tall palms and cecropia trees, t he slave market itself was held in a large, stone-paved space without the grace of any shade...."
—Diana Gabaldon, Voyager (NY: Dell, 1994), 830 Jan 17, 2010