syringa

American  

[suh-ring-guh] / səˈrɪŋ gə /

noun

1. mock orange.

2. any shrub or tree of the genus Syringa, including the lilacs.

---

syringa British  

/ sɪˈrɪŋɡə /

noun

1. another name for mock orange lilac

---

Etymology

Origin of syringa

1655–65; < New Latin < Greek sȳring- (stem of sŷrinx syrinx ) + New Latin -a -a ²; name first given to mock orange, the stems of which were used in pipe-making

---

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

syringa

There’s a California lilac — not the true syringa lilac of rhapsodic song and poetry but a ceanothus.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 29, 2022

The poem recalled Dr. Crozier as a bald, bigheaded boy who waged war with syringa berries, “the stick-breaker, the toddler I carried on my shoulders up and down the dirt tracks.”

From New York Times ● Dec. 7, 2014

It was called "Heaven Trees," a place of calm walks and lawns, fragrant with myrtle and syringa.

From Time Magazine Archive

My ideas were rather indefinite as I examined the syringa bush after the most approved fashion, and discovered no more than that somebody had broken it by dropping from above, and had gone away.

From The Professor's Mystery by Wells Hastings

The road between barracks and canteen passes the angle of the whitewashed fence; a wild syringa bush grows on the hospital side, and thrusts its blossoms over the wall.

From The Cup of Trembling and Other Stories by Mary Hallock Foote

Random Word

Spin the wheel and learn a new word!

---