poinsettia

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

noun tropical American plant having poisonous milk and showy tapering usually scarlet petallike leaves surrounding small yellow flowers

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

There were wreaths to-night in the club windows, and when Sands opened the doors there was a mass of poinsettia against the hall mirror. — The Gay Cockade, Temple Bailey
The Red Widow, with a poinsettia sprawling like a frantic clutch at her heart, and her burnished gold head rising with the grace of a gold flower out of a vase! — Just Around the Corner: Romance en casserole, Fannie Hurst
The bamboos and the custard apples, the poinsettias and the mango-trees in the garden stood still while the warm water lashed through them, and the frogs began to sing among the aloe hedges. — The Works of Rudyard Kipling: One Volume Edition, Rudyard Kipling

Christmas star, Christmas flower, lobster plant, Mexican flameleaf, painted leaf, Euphorbia pulcherrima

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