jonquil
Americannoun
noun
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a Eurasian amaryllidaceous plant, Narcissus jonquilla with long fragrant yellow or white short-tubed flowers
-
any of various other small daffodil-like plants
Etymology
Origin of jonquil
1620–30; < French jonquille < Spanish junquillo, equivalent to junc ( o ) rush, reed (< Latin juncus ) + -illo diminutive 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.
In the South, daffodils are sometimes known as jonquils, because the jonquil was the one type of daffodil that could reliably grow in a climate with milder winters and hotter summers.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 6, 2021
An old man in jonquil pants sits on a fence.
From New York Times ● Jan. 6, 2015
If anything about Patagonia is still otherworldly, it’s the colors embedded in the landscape — teal, mauve, mahogany, jonquil, periwinkle, azure, lavender.
From New York Times ● Sep. 16, 2011
The travellers had left New York in the midst of a snowstorm, but here the scent of lilac and of jonquil, the song of birds, the breath of spring, were all about them.
From The Colonel's Dream by Charles W. (Charles Waddell) Chesnutt
I don't think I am too fastidious, but that was no place for that jonquil, Jennie Aird.
From The Tower of Oblivion by Oliver [pseud.] Onions
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.
