dandelion

pronunciation

How to pronounce dandelion in British English: UK [ˈdændɪlaɪən] word uk audio image

How to pronounce dandelion in American English: US [ˈdændlˌaɪən] word us audio image

Noun:

any of several herbs of the genus Taraxacum having long tap roots and deeply notched leaves and bright yellow flowers followed by fluffy seed balls

Word Origin

dandelion: dandelion: [13] Dandelion means literally ‘lion’s tooth’. It was borrowed from French dent-de-lion, which itself was a translation of medieval Latin dēns leōnis. It was presumably so called from the toothlike points of its leaves (although some have speculated that the name comes from the long taproot). The plant has a variety of local dialectal names, many of them (clock, farmer’s clocks, schoolboy’s clock, telltime, time flower) reflecting the traditional practice of telling the time by blowing off all the plant’s tufted seeds (the number of puffs needed indicates the hour). Piss-a-bed, like its French counterpart pissenlit, betrays the plant’s diuretic properties.=> dentist, lion

dandelion (n.): early 15c., earlier dent-de-lioun (late 14c.), from Middle French dent de lion, literally "lion's tooth" (from its toothed leaves), translation of Medieval Latin dens leonis. Other folk names, like tell-time refer to the custom of telling the time by blowing the white seed (the number of puffs required to blow them all off supposedly being the number of the hour), or to the plant's more authentic diuretic qualities, preserved in Middle English piss-a-bed and French pissenlit.

2. Speaking of dandelion seed heads , don 't they look charming in a teacup ?

3. When the apollo 15 astronauts wanted to name their lunar landscape after him , they fixed on dandelion crater .

4. The common name dandelion is given to members of the genus taraxacum , a large genus of flowering plants in the family asteraceae .

5. All those random videos on youtube are just dandelion seeds in search of fertile ground on which to land .