Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of various small terrestrial orchids of the genera Liparis and Listera, having usually two basal leaves and a terminal cluster of greenish or purplish flowers.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Primarily, a European orchid, Listera ovata, a simple-stemmed plant a foot or more high, bearing a slender raceme of green flowers, and about six inches from the ground a single pair of broadly ovate leaves, to which the name refers.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Bot.) Any one of several orchidaceous plants which have only two leaves, as the species of
Listera and ofLiparis .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Any of several
orchids , of the genera Lipara and Listera, that have a pair of basal leaves
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun orchid having a pair of ovate leaves and a long slender raceme of green flowers sometimes tinged red-brown; Europe to central Asia
- noun an orchid of the genus Liparis having a pair of leaves
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[Obsolete tway, two (short for Middle English twaine; see twain) + blade (translation of Medieval Latin bifolium, two-leaf).]
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Alteration of earlier twiblade as if tway + blade.
Support
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Examples
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I have also received Liparis liliifolia, or twayblade, from this spot.
The Maine Woods 1858
yarb commented on the word twayblade
...a fringe of alder, many grasses, cattails, sweet-flags, and a few purple-lipped twayblades...
- Nabokov, Ada, or Ardor.
May 17, 2008
reesetee commented on the word twayblade
What a delightful word. :-)
May 17, 2008