ageratum
Americannoun
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any of several composite plants of the genus Ageratum, especially A. houstonianum, having heart-shaped leaves and small, dense, blue, lavender, or white flower heads, often grown in gardens.
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any of various other composite plants, as the mistflower, having blue or white flowers.
noun
Etymology
Origin of ageratum
1560–70; < New Latin; Latin agēraton < Greek agḗraton, neuter of agḗratos unaging, equivalent to a- a- 6 + gērat- (stem of gêras ) old age + -os adj. suffix
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Taking a different approach, Entomologist William Bowers, of the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, has isolated two substances from ageratum, a flowering plant, that interfere with an insect's production of juvenile hormones.
From Time Magazine Archive
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This was money enough to buy seeds of ageratum, zinnia, dwarf nasturtium, California poppy and verbena besides some others.
From The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. by Shaw, Ellen Eddy
Along the walks ageratum was planted in the following manner to serve as a border.
From The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. by Shaw, Ellen Eddy
Oxalis tropæoloides; center, blue heliotrope, blue ageratum, or Acalypha marginata; cross about the center, Thymus argenteus, or centaurea; scallop outside the cross, blue lobelia; corners, inside border, santolina.
From Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) by Bailey, L. H. (Liberty Hyde)
Often one sees a border of ageratum about such a one.
From The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. by Shaw, Ellen Eddy
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.