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AMERICAN ALOE
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Tropical American plants with basal rosettes of fibrous sword-shaped leaves and flowers in tall spikes; some cultivated for ornament or for fiber
Synonyms:
agave; American aloe; century plant
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("American aloe" is a kind of...):
desert plant; xerophile; xerophilous plant; xerophyte; xerophytic plant (plant adapted for life with a limited supply of water; compare hydrophyte and mesophyte)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "American aloe"):
Agave americana; American agave (widely cultivated American monocarpic plant with greenish-white flowers on a tall stalk; blooms only after ten to twenty years and then dies)
Agave sisalana; sisal (Mexican or West Indian plant with large fleshy leaves yielding a stiff fiber used in e.g. rope)
Agave cantala; cantala; maguey (Philippine plant yielding a hard fibre used in making coarse twine)
Agave atrovirens; maguey (Mexican plant used especially for making pulque which is the source of the colorless Mexican liquor, mescal)
Agave tequilana (Mexican plant used especially for making tequila)
dracaena (an agave that is often cultivated for its decorative foliage)
bear grass; Nolina microcarpa (stemless plant with tufts of grasslike leaves and erect panicle of minute creamy white flowers; southwestern United States and Mexico)
bowstring hemp; sansevieria (grown as a houseplant for its mottled fleshy sword-shaped leaves or as a source of fiber)
Holonyms ("American aloe" is a member of...):
Agavaceae; agave family; family Agavaceae; sisal family (chiefly tropical and xerophytic plants: includes Dracenaceae (Dracaenaceae); comprises plants that in some classifications are divided between the Amaryllidaceae and the Liliaceae)
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