Word.ws English Dictionary

bougainvillea

UK/ˌbuː.ɡənˈvɪl.ɪ.ə//ˌbu.ɡənˈvɪl.jə/

bougainvillea noun: any of several South American flowering shrubs or lianas, of the genus Bougainvillea, having three showy, colorful bracts attached below each group of three inconspicuous flowers.

bougainvillea: any of several South American flowering shrubs or lianas, of the genus Bougainvillea, having three...
Image: Kuldeepburjbhalaike, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

bougainvillea (countable and uncountable, plural bougainvilleas)

  1. Any of several South American flowering shrubs or lianas, of the genus Bougainvillea, having three showy, colorful bracts attached below each group of three inconspicuous flowers.
    • He arrives bearing flowers as though he's come to court me. Tonight he brings me bougainvillea. It is always a surprise.1991, Edwidge Danticat, Krik? Krak!, New York: Soho Press Inc., →ISBN, page 87 of 83-88
    • He is outside in his garden, surrounded by bougainvillea bursting with color.2019, Maaza Mengiste, The Shadow King, Canongate Books (2020), page 129

bougainvillea meaning in Telugu, Tagalog, Malay and Indonesian

bougainvillea in Telugu

flower
కాగితంపువ్వు kāgitampuvvu

bougainvillea in Tagalog

flower
bogambilya

bougainvillea in Malay

flower
bunga kertas

bougainvillea in Indonesian

flower
bugenvil, bunga kertas
More languagesFewer languages
bougainvillea in Thai
เฟื่องฟ้า fʉ̂ʉang-fáa
bougainvillea in Vietnamese
hoa giấy

Forms of bougainvillea

pluralbougainvilleas
alternative formbougainvillaea
alternative formbougainvillia

Origin of bougainvillea

From taxonomic name Bougainvillea, from French Bougainville + -a. Named after French admiral and explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville (1729–1811).

Questions about bougainvillea

What does bougainvillea mean?
Bougainvillea means any of several South American flowering shrubs or lianas, of the genus Bougainvillea, having three showy, colorful bracts attached below each group of three inconspicuous flowers.
What is bougainvillea in Telugu?
Bougainvillea in Telugu is కాగితంపువ్వు (kāgitampuvvu). See Bougainvillea meaning in Telugu.
What part of speech is bougainvillea?
Bougainvillea is a noun.
How do you pronounce bougainvillea?
Bougainvillea is pronounced /ˌbuː.ɡənˈvɪl.ɪ.ə/ (UK).
What is the plural of bougainvillea?
The plural of bougainvillea is bougainvilleas.

Words near bougainvillea in the dictionary

  1. Bougainville
  2. Bougainville crow
  3. Bougainville crows
  4. Bougainville Strait
  5. Bougainville thicketbird
  6. bougainvillea
  7. Bougainvillean
  8. Bougainvilleans
  9. bougainvilleas
  10. bougainvillia
  11. bougainvillias

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bougainvillea (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-bougainvillea.ogg, en-au-bougainvillea.ogg.

Cite this entry: “bougainvillea.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bougainvillea. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.