Word of the Day:
gladiolus
What It Means
The center part of the sternum.
Any of several flowering plants, of the genus Gladiolus, having sword-shaped leaves and showy flowers on spikes; gladiola.
Gladiolus in Context
“Hester Earle and Violet Wayne were moving about the aisle with bundles of wheat-ears and streamers of ivy, for the harvest thanksgiving was shortly to be celebrated, while the vicar stood waiting for their directions on the chancel steps with a great handful of crimson gladioli.”
Did You Know?
Learned borrowing from Latin gladiolus (“little sword, sword lily”), diminutive of gladius (“sword”). Compare Middle English gladiol, whence gladiole.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: gladiolus (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the word and reformatted its meaning, examples and origin.
Cite this entry: “gladiolus.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gladiolus. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
