calceolaria

American  

[kal-see-uh-lair-ee-uh] / ˌkæl si əˈlɛər i ə /

noun

1. any plant of the genus Calceolaria, of the figwort family, various species of which are cultivated for their slipperlike flowers.

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calceolaria British  

/ ˌkælsɪəˈlɛərɪə /

noun

1. Also called: slipperwort.  any tropical American scrophulariaceous plant of the genus Calceolaria: cultivated for its speckled slipper-shaped flowers

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Etymology

Origin of calceolaria

1840–50; < New Latin, equivalent to Latin calceol ( us ) small shoe ( calce ( us ) shoe + -olus -ole ¹ ) + -āria -aria

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

calceolaria

She has had a hybrid amaryllis and a yellow calceolaria named in her honor.

From Time Magazine Archive

I haven't been so excited since I recognized a calceolaria last year, and told my host it was a calceolaria just before he told me.

From The Sunny Side by A. A. (Alan Alexander) Milne

In some corollas the two lips become hollowed out in a remarkable manner, as in calceolaria, assuming a slipper-like appearance, similar to what occurs in the labellum of some orchids, as Cypripedium.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 10, Slice 5 "Fleury, Claude" to "Foraker" by Various

Pocket, who had been expelled from the company by common consent, went sulkily away towards her hammock, for she was the fairy of the calceolaria, and looked rather wicked.

From Phantastes, a Faerie Romance for Men and Women by George MacDonald

Then the children made forts and ditches, and brought in sprigs of geranium and calceolaria and box and yew and made trees and ambushes and hedges.

From Oswald Bastable and Others by C. E. (Charles Edmund) Brock