wake-robin
Americannoun
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the cuckoopint.
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any of various plants belonging to the genus Trillium, native to eastern North America, of the lily family, as T. erectum, having rank-smelling purple, yellow, or white flowers.
noun
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any of various North American herbaceous plants of the genus Trillium, such as T. grandiflorum, having a whorl of three leaves and three-petalled solitary flowers: family Trilliaceae
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any of various aroid plants, esp the cuckoopint
Etymology
Origin of wake-robin
First recorded in 1520–30
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.
Finally we come to where there is less grass but more dead leaves and leaf mould, and here is the first real herbaceous flower of this spring, the dwarf white trillium, or wake-robin.
From Some Spring Days in Iowa by Lazell, Frederick John
Some brought handfuls of columbine from rocky nooks, and others the purple trillium, that is near of kin to Burroughs's white "wake-robin."
From Nature's Serial Story by Roe, Edward Payson
"Shall we take up this wake-robin?" asked Ethel Blue.
From Ethel Morton's Enterprise by Smith, Mabell S. C. (Mabell Shippie Clarke)
The dandelion tells me when to look for the swallow, the dogtooth violet when to expect the wood-thrush, and when I have found the wake-robin in bloom I know the season is fairly inaugurated.
From Wake-Robin by Burroughs, John
There was a delicious odor of sweet-shrub in the air, and the fruity fragrance of the dark, wild wake-robin underfoot.
From The Mountain Girl by Erskine, Payne
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.
