bignonia
Americannoun
-
any chiefly tropical American climbing shrub of the genus Bignonia, cultivated for its showy, trumpet-shaped flowers.
-
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 her fingers, I noticed the flower of a bignonia.
From The Wild Huntress Love in the Wilderness by Reid, Mayne
It thrives mightily on these gravelled shores, and so do the bignonia vine, the poison ivy, and the Virginia creeper.
From Afloat on the Ohio An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo by Thwaites, Reuben Gold
How my heart bounded, when I beheld the blossom of the bignonia; for it was that which hung drooping from the branch of the cotton-wood, round which its bright leaves were amorously entwining!
From The Wild Huntress Love in the Wilderness by Reid, Mayne
Crotons, palms, mangoes, mellingtonias, teak, and bamboos adorn it, and the poinsettia and bougainvillea, the railway creeper and the bignonia venusta, make it gay with many colours.
From From Sea to Sea Letters of Travel by Kipling, Rudyard
The Doctor found up there a new phlox and a pretty pink stone-crop, to add to our herbarium, while here as elsewhere the bignonia grows profusely in every crevice of the rock.
From Afloat on the Ohio An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo by Thwaites, Reuben Gold
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.
