Word.ws English Dictionary

xenia

/ˈziːniə/

xenia noun: the concept of hospitality to strangers. Also the plural of xenium.

Noun (1)

xenia (uncountable)

  1. The concept of hospitality to strangers.
  2. The effect that genes from pollen have on the endosperm.

Noun (2)

xenia (plural xenias)

  1. A coral of the genus Xenia of photosynthetic soft marine corals with many-branched arms which pulse and push water around the coral.
    • [...] keep things like elegance corals, xenias and other soft corals and polyps that don't need maximum light levels.2001, Freshwater and Marine Aquarium, volume 24
    • Corals such as pulsing xenia will be fine if left above the waterline for short amounts of time during water [changes ... I'm fine with] xenias being exposed to air for a relatively brief period.2009, Tropical Fish Hobbyist, volume 57

Proper noun capitalized: Xenia

Xenia

  1. A female given name from Ancient Greek of mainly historical use in English.
  2. A village in Illinois.
  3. An unincorporated community in Kansas.
  4. A city, the county seat of Greene County, Ohio.

Also used as

xenia is also the plural of xenium.

Forms of xenia

Noun
pluralxenias
Proper noun
alternative formKsenia
alternative formKseniya
alternative formXeniya

Origin of xenia

Borrowed from New Latin xenia, from Ancient Greek ξενῐ́ᾱ (xenĭ́ā, “hospitality”).

From Xenia.

From the assumed name of a fifth-century saint venerated in the Eastern Orthodox Church, Latin Xenia, from Ancient Greek ξενία (xenía, “hospitable”). Doublet of Oksana.

Words formed from xenia

Questions about xenia

What does xenia mean?
Xenia means the concept of hospitality to strangers.
What part of speech is xenia?
Xenia can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce xenia?
Xenia is pronounced /ˈziːniə/.
What is the plural of xenia?
The plural of xenia is xenias.

Words near xenia in the dictionary

  1. xenematide
  2. xenematides
  3. xenharmonic
  4. xenharmonics
  5. xenharmony
  6. xenia
  7. xenial
  8. xenias
  9. xenic
  10. xenic acid
  11. xenica

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: xenia (page history and authors); Xenia (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:

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