dahlia
pronunciation
How to pronounce dahlia in British English:
UK [ˈdeɪliə]
How to pronounce dahlia in American English:
US [ˈdæliə]
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- Noun:
- any of several plants of or developed from the species Dahlia pinnata having tuberous roots and showy rayed variously colored flower heads; native to the mountains of Mexico and Central America and Colombia
Word Origin
- dahlia
- dahlia: [19] The dahlia was named in 1791 in honour of Anders Dahl, an 18th-century Swedish botanist who discovered the plant in Mexico in 1788. The first record of the term in English is from 1804. During the 19th century it was used for a particular shade of red: ‘One of the many ugly shades that are to be worn this season is dahlia’, Pall Mall Gazette 29 September 1892.
- dahlia (n.)
- 1804, named 1791 by Spanish botanist Antonio José Cavanilles for Anders Dahl (1751-1789), Swedish botanist and pupil of Linnaeus, who discovered it in Mexico in 1788. The likelihood that a true blue variety of the flower never could be cultivated was first proposed by French-Swiss botanist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle, and noted in English by 1835; hence blue dahlia, figurative expression for "something impossible or unattainable" (1866).
Example
- 1. The venice film festival opens with " the black dahlia "
- 2. Like many cinematic failures , " the black dahlia " is really two films .
- 3. Dahlia : we 've all lost our children . Our light .
- 4. " It will certainly be something pretty , " said dahlia .
- 5. Asking about your sister and the dahlia ?