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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A bulbous Mediterranean plant (Hyacinthus orientalis) having narrow leaves and a terminal raceme of variously colored, usually fragrant flowers, with a funnel-shaped perianth. Also called jacinth.
  2. n. Any of several similar or related plants, such as the grape hyacinth.
  3. n. Greek Mythology A plant, perhaps the larkspur, gladiolus, or iris, that sprang from the blood of the slain Hyacinthus.
  4. n. A deep purplish blue to vivid violet.
  5. n. A reddish or cinnamon-colored variety of transparent zircon, used as a gemstone.
  6. n. A blue precious stone, perhaps the sapphire, known in antiquity.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. An ornamental bulbous plant of the genus Hyacinthus (H. orientalis), natural order Liliaceæ. It is a native of the Levant, and grows in abundance about Aleppo and Bagdad. The root is a tunicated bulb; the leaves are broad and green; the scape is erect, bearing numerous often drooping bell-shaped flowers of almost all colors, and both single- and double-flowered. The hyacinth appears first to have been cultivated as a garden-flower by the Dutch about the beginning of the sixteenth century. It was introduced into England about the end of that century, and is now one of the most popular of cultivated bulbous plants. [The so-called yellow sickness of the hyacinth is produced by a parasitic bacterium which occurs as yellow slimy masses in the vessels. “In the resting bulb the bacteria are confined to the vascular bundles of the bulb-scales; at flowering time they are found also in the leaves, and not in the vessels only, but in the parenchyma also, where they fill the intercellular spaces, [and] destroy the cells.” (De Bary, Comp. Morph. and Biol., p. 482.)]
  2. n. By transfer, a plant of some other genus. The California hyacinth is a plant of the liliaceous genus Brodiæa; the Cape hyacinth, Scilla corymbosa and S. brachyphylla; the fair-haired hyacinth, Muscari comosum; the grape-hyacinth, or globe-hyacinth, the genus Muscari; the lily-hyacinth, Scilla Lilio-Hyacinthus; the Missouri hyacinth, a plant of either of the genera Hesperanthus and Brodiæa; the hyacinth of Peru, Scilla Peruviana; the star-hyacinth, Scilla amœna; the starch-hyacinth, Muscari racemosum; the tassel-hyacinth, Muscari comosum; the wild hyacinth, Camassia (Scilla) Fraseri.
  3. n. Among the ancients, a gem of bluish-violet color, supposed to be the sapphire.
  4. n. In modern usage, a gem of a reddish-orange color which is a variety of the mineral zircon. Some varieties of garnet and topaz also receive this name.
  5. n. In heraldry, the tincture tenney or tawny when blazoning is done by colors of precious stones. See blazon.
  6. n. In ornithology, a purple gallinule, as of the genus Ionornis or Porphyrio; a sultan.

Wiktionary

  1. n. Any bulbous plant of the genus Hyacinthus, native to the Mediterranean and South Africa.
  2. n. A variety of zircon, ranging in color from brown, orange, reddish-brown and yellow.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. A bulbous plant of the genus Hyacinthus, bearing beautiful spikes of fragrant flowers. Hyacinthus orientalis is a common variety.
  2. n. A plant of the genus Camassia (Camassia Farseri), called also Eastern camass; wild hyacinth.
  3. n. The name also given to Scilla Peruviana, a Mediterranean plant, one variety of which produces white, and another blue, flowers; -- called also, from a mistake as to its origin, Hyacinth of Peru.
  4. n. (Min.) A red variety of zircon, sometimes used as a gem. See Zircon.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. any of numerous bulbous perennial herbs
  2. n. a red transparent variety of zircon used as a gemstone

Etymologies

  1. From Ancient Greek ὑάκινθος (huakinthos, "any of several dark blue flowers") (Wiktionary)
  2. Latin hyacinthus, from Greek huakinthos, wild hyacinth. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

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Lists

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Comments

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  • ruzuzu Here's my report on The Waste Land. First, if anyone asks, it's my official policy to make fun of people who read personal symbolism into poetry while neglecting a poem's form and its political, social, or literary context, blah, blah, blah.

    Now it's safe for me to say it was "iroquoisy" because of the footnote about Actaeon, the ardent hunter, and that of course I'm the hyacinth girl--we all are. We are also all Tiresias. Feb 23, 2010

  • ruzuzu Dang it, I made it this far without reading The Waste Land, but now I'll have to read it. I'll get back to you on this. Feb 20, 2010

  • PossibleUnderscore I think you both know too much.
    *psst* I'm pretty sure you just gave away her secret, bilby. Feb 20, 2010

  • bilby Are you the Hyacinth Girl? Feb 20, 2010

  • ruzuzu Sometimes bilby scares me. I think he knows too much. Feb 20, 2010

  • bilby
    If, of thy mortal goods, thou art bereft,
    And from thy slender store two loaves
    alone to thee are left,
    Sell one & from the dole,
    Buy hyacinths to feed the soul.

    - Muslihuddin Sadi. Feb 20, 2010

  • bilby
    'You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
    They called me the hyacinth girl.'
    - Yet when we came back, late, from the hyacinth garden,
    Your arms full and your hair wet, I could not
    Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
    Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
    Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
    Oed'und leer das Meer.

    - TS Eliot, 'The Wasteland'. Jul 22, 2009

  • knitandpurl On Emily Dickinson's garden:
    "She never left the house except to tend the hyacinths and heliotrope in her garden, or to cut back the cascading honeysuckle, which, as her niece next door observed, 'lured the hummingbirds all day'."
    from A Summer of Hummingbirds" by Christopher Benfey, p 3

    (and a picture) Oct 15, 2008

  • treeseed
    The word hyacinth comes from the Greek Hyakinthos, a beautiful young man who in Greek mythology was loved by the sun god Apollo. One day they were practising throwing the discus but the jealous god of the West Wind, who was also in love with Hyakinthos, blew the discus back and it fatally wounded him. From his blood grew a flower which the god Apollo named after him. Jan 20, 2008

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‘hyacinth’ has been looked up 3185 times, loved by 1 person, added to 51 lists, commented on 9 times, and has a Scrabble score of 19.