nymphaea
UK/nɪmˈfiːə/
nymphaea noun: the European white water lily. Also the plural of nymphaeum.
Noun
nymphaea (plural nymphaeas)
- the European white water lily.
- Guianerius, cap. 8, tract. 15, would have them used twice a day, and when they come forth of the baths, their backbones to be anointed with oil of almonds, violets, nymphæa, fresh capon-grease, etc.1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition II...
- Any species of the genus Nymphaea.
Also used as
nymphaea is also the plural of nymphaeum.
Forms of nymphaea
| plural | nymphaeas |
|---|
Origin of nymphaea
From Latin nymphaea, from Ancient Greek νυμφαῖα (numphaîa), feminine singular form of νυμφαῖος (numphaîos, “sacred to the nymphs”), from νύμφη (númphē, “nymph”). Sense 2 is a semantic loan from translingual Nymphaea, from the same Latin and Greek.
Inflected forms.
Questions about nymphaea
- What does nymphaea mean?
- Nymphaea means the European white water lily.
- What part of speech is nymphaea?
- Nymphaea is a noun.
- How do you pronounce nymphaea?
- Nymphaea is pronounced /nɪmˈfiːə/ (UK).
- What is the plural of nymphaea?
- The plural of nymphaea is nymphaeas.
Words near nymphaea in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: nymphaea (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.
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Cite this entry: “nymphaea.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nymphaea. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.