orchid

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“
A ride over the hills brought us to a wood of oaks, with their branches fringed with the long grey Spanish moss, and a profusion of epiphytes clinging to their bark, some splendidly in flower, showing the fantastic shapes and brilliant colours one sees in English orchid-houses.

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Definitions (11)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun A member of the orchid family.
  2. noun The flower of any of these plants, especially one cultivated for ornament.
  3. noun A pale to light purple, from grayish to purplish pink to strong reddish purple.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (6)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

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Examples (50)

  • Notice the attractive Swiss chard leaves.This orchid has been blooming continuously since October 2008.This one started blooming the last week of April 2009.
  • It reminds me of an orchid, although I know little enough of flowers, and its scent is strange, salty and female. —  Smoke and Mirrors, by Neil Gaiman.
  • November: Sailor Moon has her own orchid, a distinction she shares with Dracula and Kim Il Sung. —  Anime Nano!
  • But I didn't know that the orchid is considered a flower of nobility. —  Learning Cantonese
  • Another interesting plant that grows there is the lady-slipper orchid, which is the flashiest wild orchid that grows in Ohio. —  dispatch.com: RSS
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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. From New Latin Orchideae, family name, from Latin orchis, a kind of orchid, from Greek orkhis, testicle, orchid (from the shape of its tubers).

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. from orchis, Latin orchis (stem erroneously assumed to be orchid-): see Orchis.
 

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/ˈɔrkɪd/
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