Word.ws English Dictionary

poinsettia

/ˌpɔɪnˈsɛ.tɪə/US/ˌpɔɪnˈsɛ.t(i)ə/

poinsettia noun: a plant, Euphorbia pulcherrima, with rather small and insignificant flowers surrounded by large bright red leaves; native to Mexico and Central America and widely cultivated as a garden plant; widely used in Christmas floral displays.

poinsettia: a plant, Euphorbia pulcherrima, with rather small and insignificant flowers surrounded by large...
Image: Vengolis, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

poinsettia (plural poinsettias)

  1. A plant, Euphorbia pulcherrima, with rather small and insignificant flowers surrounded by large bright red leaves; native to Mexico and Central America and widely cultivated as a garden plant; widely used in Christmas floral displays.
    • Masses of scarlet Poinsettias glowed bravely against the dark green background formed by broad-leafed plantains, whose great tattered leaves rustled with every gust of wind that reached them.1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 22
    • “So red,” she said of the poinsettias behind Florencia, which Jacquie didn’t even like because of how even the real ones look fake.2018, Tommy Orange, “Jacquie Red Feather”, in There There, New York, N.Y.: Vintage Books, →ISBN, page 99
    Synonyms:
    Christmas star, Mexican flame leaf

poinsettia meaning in Tamil, Tagalog, Arabic and Indonesian

poinsettia in Tamil

poinsettia
பட்டு paṭṭu

poinsettia in Tagalog

plant
paskuwa, paskuwas

poinsettia in Arabic

plant
بنت القنسول

poinsettia in Indonesian

plant
kastuba
More languagesFewer languages
poinsettia in Persian
سرخبرگه، بنت کنسول، بنت قنسول
poinsettia in Thai
คริสต์มาส krís-mâas, โพผัน poo-pǎn, สองฤดู sɔ̌ɔng-rʉ́-duu
poinsettia in Vietnamese
trạng nguyên

Synonyms of poinsettia

Forms of poinsettia

pluralpoinsettias

Origin of poinsettia

After the obsolete genus name Poinsettia, named after Joel Roberts Poinsett (19th-century US minister to Mexico); equivalent to Poinsett + -ia.

Questions about poinsettia

What does poinsettia mean?
Poinsettia means a plant, Euphorbia pulcherrima, with rather small and insignificant flowers surrounded by large bright red leaves; native to Mexico and Central America and widely cultivated as a garden plant; widely used in Christmas floral displays.
What is poinsettia in Tamil?
Poinsettia in Tamil is பட்டு (paṭṭu). See Poinsettia meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is poinsettia?
Poinsettia is a noun.
How do you pronounce poinsettia?
Poinsettia is pronounced /ˌpɔɪnˈsɛ.tɪə/ (UK).
What is the plural of poinsettia?
The plural of poinsettia is poinsettias.

Words near poinsettia in the dictionary

  1. poinds
  2. Poinsett
  3. Poinsett County
  4. poinsetta
  5. poinsettas
  6. poinsettia
  7. poinsettias
  8. point
  9. point and call
  10. point and shoot
  11. point and shoot camera

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: poinsettia (page history and authors); பட்டு (Tamil) (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-poinsettia.wav.

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