calamus
Americannoun
-
calami
plural
-
the sweet flag, Acorus calamus.
-
its aromatic root.
-
any of various tropical Asian palms of the genus Calamus, some of which are a source of rattan.
-
the hollow base of a feather; a quill.
noun
-
any tropical Asian palm of the genus Calamus, some species of which are a source of rattan and canes
-
another name for sweet flag
-
the aromatic root of the sweet flag
-
ornithol the basal hollow shaft of a feather; quill
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of calamus
1350–1400; Middle English < Latin < Greek kálamos reed, stalk
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.
See Examples For:
In the garden grow "an orchard of pomegranates . . . spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense".
From The Guardian ● Jan. 29, 2011
These were calamus, bloodroot, snakeroot, slippery elm, tansy, and scores that I do not remember the names of.
From The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson by Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
The outside of the raw calamus is smooth and is made into commercial cane used for chairs.
From Construction Work for Rural and Elementary Schools by Virginia McGaw
Along the centre of the floor is the median furrow, which terminates below in a pen-shaped form, the so-called calamus scriptorius.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Slice 4 "Bradford, William" to "Brequigny, Louis" by Various
Here also grew camphor, with spikenard, and saffron, calamus, and cinnamon, with all its trees of frankincense, myrrh, and aloes, with all chief spices.
From A Book of English Prose Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools by Percy Lubbock
This should be Fort Clark, not Fort Leavenworth—an evident lapsus calami.
From Travels in the Interior of North America, Part I, (Being Chapters I-XV of the London Edition, 1843) Early Western Travels, 1748-1846, Volume XXII by Alexander Philipp Maximilian
The artist is a sort of impassioned proof-reader, blue-pencilling the lapsus calami of God.
From Damn! A Book of Calumny by H. L. (Henry Louis) Mencken
I think this must have been a lapsus calami on Voltaire's part, because it is unlikely that he would have invented such a story.
From The Koran (Al-Qur'an) by George Sale
He could hardly have known of the two G's, from the sound; but the omission of the cross-bar from the one that was de rigueur was certainly a lapsus calami, and a serious one.
From When Ghost Meets Ghost by William Frend De Morgan
It can, therefore, have been a mere lapsus calami on her part, as this eminently sensible woman was incapable of the silly weakness of concealing her age.
From Maria Edgeworth by Helen Zimmern
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.
