petunia
Americannoun
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petunias
plural
-
any garden plant belonging to the genus Petunia, of the nightshade family, native to tropical America, having funnel-shaped flowers of various colors.
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a deep, reddish purple.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of petunia
1815–25; < New Latin < obsolete French petun tobacco < Tupi petyn; see -ia
Vocabulary lists containing petunia
English Words Derived from Indigenous Languages of the Americas
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Example Sentences
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See Examples For:
Combined with the genetic manipulation of the potential proteins involved, the work surprisingly revealed that a karrikin-like signaling pathway played a key role in petunia cellular signaling.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 21, 2024
Light poles are adorned with overflowing petunia baskets and “flower towers,” with 19 blooming baskets running self-contained watering and fertilizing systems.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 12, 2023
To give you an idea of the creativity that required, my last version included the sentence, “What the petunia was that all about?”
From Washington Post ● Mar. 9, 2020
Capitol Facilities Manager John Boyle says the annual petunia planting costs about $7,000 for the flowers.
From Washington Times ● Jun. 5, 2019
The man who owned the local nursery—the person who’d sold Miss Mallory all of her petunia bulbs and pansy seeds, fertilizer and planting tools and everything—had, just that morning, presented her with a gift.
From "A Tangle of Knots" by Lisa Graff
A research team led by Purdue University scientists has documented new details about how petunias use volatile organic compounds to communicate.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 21, 2024
The scientists have already shown that several common flowers, such as periwinkles, petunias, and roses can be made to glow.
From NewsForKids.net ● Jan. 19, 2024
Stars, planets, people and petunias: everything emits a special kind of radiation and will, if it sticks around long enough, evaporate into nothing.
From Scientific American ● Jun. 22, 2023
First the petunias died, he said, and then the chrysanthemums, marigolds and geraniums.
From New York Times ● Oct. 26, 2022
With my porch and my pillow, my pretty purple petunias.
From "The House on Mango Street" by Sandra Cisneros
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.
