orchid
pronunciation
How to pronounce orchid in British English:
UK [ˈɔːkɪd]
How to pronounce orchid in American English:
US [ˈɔːrkɪd]
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- Noun:
- any of numerous plants of the orchid family usually having flowers of unusual shapes and beautiful colors
Word Origin
- orchid
- orchid: [19] Greek órkhis meant ‘testicle’ (a sense preserved in English orchitis ‘inflammation of the testicles’ [18]). The tuberous roots of the orchid supposedly resemble testicles (hence the old dialect name ballock’s-grass for various sorts of wild orchid), and so the plant was named órkhis. The Latin form orchis was taken by botanists of the 16th and 17th centuries as the basis for the plant’s scientific name (they smuggled an inauthentic d into it, under the mistaken impression that its stem form was orchid-), and it passed from there into English.
- orchid (n.)
- 1845, introduced by John Lindley in "School Botanty," from Modern Latin Orchideæ (Linnaeus), the plant's family name, from Latin orchis, a kind of orchid, from Greek orkhis (genitive orkheos) "orchid," literally "testicle," from PIE *orghi-, the standard root for "testicle" (cognates: Avestan erezi "testicles," Armenian orjik, Middle Irish uirgge, Irish uirge "testicle," Lithuanian erzilas "stallion"). The plant so called because of the shape of its root. Earlier in English in Latin form, orchis (1560s), and in Middle English it was ballockwort (c. 1300; see ballocks). Marred by extraneous -d- in an attempt to extract the Latin stem.
Example
- 1. Sweat was forming on her body like dew on an orchid .
- 2. 11 / 11 The flowers of the fly orchid not only look like flies , they also produce a scent that mimics a female fly 's pheromones .
- 3. When a woman gets an orchid .
- 4. Anson 's partners were his wife and michael ooi , an internationally renowned orchid dealer .
- 5. Flower is orchid , the fabric is silk and the animal is dove .