Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The mock orange.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A plant of the genus Philadelphus; the mock-orange. The common species are vigorous, graceful shrubs of a bushy habit, with abundant large white, mostly clustered, flowers. The original plant was P. coronarius, a native of southern Europe, in varieties extending thence to Japan. It is universal in gardens, but is too powerfully odorous for many persons. The finest species is perhaps P. grandiflorus, of the southeastern United States, having pure-white flowers two inches broad. Other good species are P. inodorus and P. hirsutus of the same region, and P. Gordonianus of California. See cut under
Philadelphus . [capitalized] [NL.] A genus of gamopetalous plants, of the order Oleaceæ, type of the tribe Syringeæ; the lilacs. It is characterized by a corolla with usually cylindrical tube and four broad induplicate or valvate lobes, and by two ovules in each of the two cells of the ovary, ripening into obliquely winged seeds with fleshy albumen. The 6 species are natives of eastern Europe and temperate parts of Asia, and include the cultivated lilacs. They are smooth or hairy shrubs, bearing opposite and usually entire leaves, and handsome flowers in terminal and often thyrsoid panicles, followed by oblong coriaceous two valved capsules. (Seelilac .) The leaves and fruit of S. vulgaris have been used as a tonic and antiperiodic.
Wiktionary
- n. Any of several flowering plants, of the genus Syringa, such as the lilacs.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A genus of plants; the lilac.
- n. The mock orange; -- popularly so called because its stems were formerly used as pipestems.
WordNet 3.0
- n. genus of Old World shrubs or low trees having fragrant flowers in showy panicles: lilacs
- n. large hardy shrub with showy and strongly fragrant creamy-white flowers in short terminal racemes
Etymologies
- From Ancient Greek σῦριγξ ("pan pipes"). (Wiktionary)
- New Latin, from Greek surinx, suring-, shepherd's pipe (from the use of its hollow stems to make pipes). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“_ (DD) (The name syringa is commonly misapplied to the species of _Philadelphus.”
“A syringa was planted in front, and a broom-tree on the right united it with the willow; in the middle there was a deal table.”
“My favorite thing was all of the syringa flowers, like etched on the carpet how do they even do that? and in the glass windows...very pretty.”
“These are Jacaranda mimosifolia, Lantana camara, syringa (Melia azedarach), and white mulberry (Morus alba).”
“Ether de Lilas Blanc sur Feuillage Tendre, built around a note of white lilac syringa vulgaris alba, and also featuring the notes of passion-flower, orange blossom, bark, mandarin, lilac, leaves, iris and musk, is perhaps my favorite of the three.”
“Their activities upset the natural status quo, and we awoke one morning to find a pair of adult boomslangs Afrikaans for tree snake—“boo-um-slung”, the female brown, the male pea green, looped in a bow at the top of the syringa tree in the driveway.”
“There was a deafening bang, and a large section of the syringa tree detached itself and plummeted to the ground.”
“Wistaria chinensis, and brightened by azalea and syringa clusters.”
“On this particular afternoon, Mme. de Guermantes had given me, knowing that I was fond of them, some branches of syringa which had been sent to her from the South.”
“The spray of syringa made me profoundly sad, as did also the discovery that Albertine could have thought or called me cruel and hostile; most of all perhaps, certain lies so unexpected that I had difficulty in grasping them.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘syringa’.
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delcj's Words
gavotte, perverse, tchotchkes, schmoop, divisural, triplicostate, albatross, snuggery, virgule, separatrix, solidus, tetrodotoxin and 116 more...
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Madame Bovary
Some good words (chiefly French of origin, and often to do with the medical profession) encountered reading the Aveling translation -- mostly new to me, but a few words that are just worthy of bein...
tulle, argand, friable, corolla, lives of stir, difficile, rime, inveigh, feuilleton, peristyle, refulgence, wainscoting and 98 more...
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Stately Plants
The flowers and trees of states and nations.
camellia, forget-me-not, saguaro cactus, apple blossom, Calafornia poppy, Rocky Mountain, mountain laurel, peach blossom, American beauty rose, orange blossom, Cherokee rose, pua aloalo and 210 more...
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looked up
Words I've come across while reading and looked up in the dictionary.
deesis, pendentive, revetment, aedicule, stemma, patera, ephod, entrepot, corbel, exedra, volute, archivolt and 1408 more...
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Proustian
vetiver, cheval-glass, ossature, transvertebration, orris-root, ferruginous, viaticum, rep, senescence, bengal light, madeleine, lime-blossom and 109 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for syringa.
knitandpurl "The spray of syringa made me profoundly sad, as did also the thought that Albertine could have believed, and said, that I was treacherous and hostile; and most of all, perhaps, certain lies so unexpected that I had difficulty in grasping them."
--The Captive & The Fugitive by Marcel Proust, translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, revised by D.J. Enright, p 828 of the Modern Library paperback edition Feb 20, 2010
knitandpurl "Then I thought again of the evening of the syringa, and remembered that about a fortnight later, as my jealousy kept changing its object, I had asked Albertine whether she had ever had relations with Andrée, and she had replied: "Oh! never! Of course, I adore Andrée; I have a deep affection for her, but as I might have for a sister, and even if I had the tastes which you seem to suppose, she's the last person I should have thought of in that connexion. I can swear to you by anything you like, the honour of my aunt, the grave of my poor mother." I had believed her."
--The Captive & The Fugitive by Marcel Proust, translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, revised by D.J. Enright, p 827 of the Modern Library paperback edition Feb 20, 2010
hernesheir State flower of Idaho, my home state. Feb 20, 2010
knitandpurl "At all events, nobody could ever mention syringa again in her hearing without her turning crimson and putting her hand over her face in the hope of hiding her blushes."
--The Captive & The Fugitive by Marcel Proust, translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, revised by D.J. Enright, p 813 of the Modern Library paperback edition Feb 20, 2010
knitandpurl "But we lost our heads all the same, so that to conceal our embarrassment we both of us, without having a chance to consult each other, had the same idea: to pretend to dread the scent of syringa which as a matter of fact we adored."
--The Captive & The Fugitive by Marcel Proust, translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, revised by D.J. Enright, p 812 of the Modern Library paperback edition Feb 20, 2010
knitandpurl "On this particular evening, Mme de Guermantes had given me, knowing that I was fond of them, some branches of syringa which had been sent to her from the South. When I left her and went upstairs to our flat, Albertine had already returned, and on the staircase I ran into Andrée, who seemed to be distressed by the powerful smell of the flowers that I was bringing home."
--The Captive & The Fugitive by Marcel Proust, translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, revised by D.J. Enright, pp 63-64 of the Modern Library paperback edition Dec 29, 2009
bilby
I long for the baby to wander hither to me
Like a wind-shadow wandering over the water,
So that she can stand on my knee
With her little bare feet in my hands,
Cool like syringa buds,
Firm and silken like pink young peony flowers.
- D.H. Lawrence, ' A Baby Running Barefoot'. Sep 8, 2009