bignonia
Americannoun
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any chiefly tropical American climbing shrub of the genus Bignonia, cultivated for its showy, trumpet-shaped flowers.
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any member of the plant family Bignoniaceae, characterized by trees, shrubs, and woody vines having opposite leaves, showy, bisexual, tubular flowers, and often large, gourdlike or capsular fruit with flat, winged seeds, and including the bignonia, catalpa, princess tree, and trumpet creeper.
noun
Etymology
Origin of bignonia
1690–1700; < New Latin, named after Abbé Bignon (librarian of Louis XIV of France); see -ia
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.
In creepers, bignonia and lantana will hold their own under difficulties perhaps as well as any that can be found.
From Three Elephant Power and Other Stories by Paterson, A. B. (Andrew Barton)
The whole front of it was covered by a large scarlet bignonia and a native multiflora rose, which, entwisting and interlacing, left scarce a vestige of the rough logs to be seen.
From Uncle Tom's Cabin by Stowe, Harriet Beecher
The jasmine and bignonia spill Their balm around your windowsill; The sill where, when magnolia-white, In foliage mists, the moon hangs far, You lean with bright deep eyes of night And hearken my guitar.
From Weeds by the Wall Verses by Cawein, Madison Julius
We have found shrubs of eight or ten feet high entwined with bignonia and other ligneous creepers.
From Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Year 1799-1804 — Volume 1 by Ross, Thomasina
MULLER, FRITZ, reproduction of orchids. -development of crustacea. -direct action of pollen. -self-sterile bignonia.
From The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication — Volume 2 by Darwin, Charles
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.