Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of various plants of the genus Trillium, of North America, the Himalaya Mountains, and eastern Asia, having a whorl of three leaflike bracts and a usually white, reddish, or yellow three-petaled flower.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A genus of liliaceous plants, of the tribe Medeoleæ.
  • noun A plant of the above genus.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Bot.) A genus of liliaceous plants; the three-leaved nightshade; -- so called because all the parts of the plant are in threes.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Any of several perennial flowering plants, of the genus Trillium, having flowers with three petals

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun any liliaceous plant of the genus Trillium having a whorl of three leaves at the top of the stem with a single three-petaled flower

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[New Latin Trillium, genus name, probably from Swedish trilling, triplet (from its three leaflike bracts), from obsolete Swedish tri, three, from Old Swedish thrīr; see trei- in Indo-European roots.]

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Examples

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  • See also: trillium flexipes: "nodding wakerobin" is such a good name!

    November 27, 2009