| / English Dictionary |
PETAL
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Part of the perianth that is usually brightly colored
Synonyms:
flower petal; petal
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("petal" is a kind of...):
floral leaf (a modified leaf that is part of a flower)
Holonyms ("petal" is a part of...):
corolla ((botany) the whorl of petals of a flower that collectively form an inner floral envelope or layer of the perianth)
Derivation:
petalous ((of flowers) having petals)
Context examples:
But no—eventide is as pleasant to him as to me, and this antique garden as attractive; and he strolls on, now lifting the gooseberry-tree branches to look at the fruit, large as plums, with which they are laden; now taking a ripe cherry from the wall; now stooping towards a knot of flowers, either to inhale their fragrance or to admire the dew-beads on their petals.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Like all Asteraceae, the flowers are a composite inflorescence, with purple (rarely yellow or white) florets arranged in a prominent, somewhat cone-shaped head; cone-shaped because the petals of the outer ray florets, once the flower head opens, tend to point downward (are decumbent), thus forming a cone.
(Echinacea, NCI Thesaurus)
In imagination he dared to think of her lips on his, and so vividly did he imagine that he went dizzy at the thought and seemed to rift through clouds of rose-petals, filling his brain with their perfume.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
At the grey tea hour there were always rooms that throbbed incessantly with this low sweet fever, while fresh faces drifted here and there like rose petals blown by the sad horns around the floor.
(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)
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