tulip

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of several bulbous plants of the genus Tulipa, native chiefly to Asia and widely cultivated for their showy, variously colored flowers.
2. n. The flower of any of these plants.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A plant of the genus Tulipa, of which several species are well-known garden bulbs with highly colored bell-shaped flowers, blooming in spring. The common garden tulips are derived chiefly from T. Gesneriana, a native of central and southern Europe and adjacent parts of Asia, having shining scarlet flowers with purple-black spots at the base of the divisions, or a partly yellow claw. Varieties of this species have been developed with great care, especially in the Netherlands, the seat at one time of a “tulipomania.” The catalogue of a Haarlem florist of recent date offered 1,800 varieties. They are divided into four classes: namely, “breeders” or “self-flowers,” with the natural plain color; “bizarres,” having a dear yellow ground with red, brownish, maroon, or purple markings; “byblœmens,” with a white background marked prevailingly with red or shades of purple; and “roses,” with white background variegated with shades of rose-color, deep-red, or scarlet. It is said that when a self-tulip once “breaks,” the new variety remains always the same. Another long-cultivated tulip is the Duc Van Thol, T. suaveolens, with fragrant scarlet, yellow, or variegated flowers, early, and especially suited for pot-culture and forcing. T. præcox, having scarlet flowers with large black-purple spots surrounded with yellow near the base, also affords varieties. Less conspicuous or less known species are T. Oculus-solis, the sun's-eye tulip, with a brilliant scarlet perianth, having black spots at the base of the segments; T. australis (T. Celsiana) with bright-yellow flowers smaller than the common kinds; T. Clusiana, low and delicate, having the three inner divisions pure-white, the three outer stained with pink; T. pulchella, type of a group of very pretty dwarf species; and T. Greigi, the Turkestan tulip, one of the most showy and desirable of all known tulips, bearing goblet-shaped flowers, commonly of a vivid orange-scarlet hue, also purple or yellow, from 4 to 6 inches broad when fully expanded.
2. n. In ordnance, a bell-shaped outward swell of the muzzle of a gun, as a rule abandoned in modern ordnance.
3. n. A liliaceous plant, Bæometra columellaris (Tulipa Breyniana) of the Cape of Good Hope.
4. n. In California, same as butterfly-tulip: see above.

Wiktionary

1. n. A type of flowering plant, genus Tulipa.
2. n. The flower of this plant.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. Any plant of the liliaceous genus Tulipa. Many varieties are cultivated for their beautiful, often variegated flowers.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. any of numerous perennial bulbous herbs having linear or broadly lanceolate leaves and usually a single showy flower