cyclamen

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

noun Mediterranean plant widely cultivated as a houseplant for its showy dark green leaves splotched with silver and nodding white or pink to reddish flowers with reflexed petals

Borrowing from New Latin cyclamen, from Latin cyclamīnos.

Removing the smaller, that I might plant violets and cyclamens and convolvuluses and strawberries, and such other herbs as grow willingly in dry places, I left a few of these for seats, a few for tables and for couches. — Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection, Walter Savage Landor
A few peasant people were stirring about; three dark-eyed girls, as straight as Greek goddesses, were coming down the steep path from Anacapri with orange baskets on their heads, and their hands full of posies of pink cyclamen; a mother with a child clinging to her yellow-bordered skirt was taking an earthenware pitcher to the well for water; a persistent bell in the little church of S. Costanzo was calling some to prayers, and others were starting the ordinary routine of the day, attending to animals, cutting salads in their gardens, spreading out fishing-nets, or getting ready the hand barrows on which they sold their wares. — The Jolliest School of All, Angela Brazil

Cyclamen purpurascens

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