Christmas bush
- noun
- Australian
:
arbusto de Navidad
- Every year, we decorate the Christmas bush in the garden with colorful lights and ornaments.
Examples
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- It's a Christmas bush.
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The vibrant red flowers of the Christmas bush are popular decorations for holiday celebrations in Australia.
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During Christmas time, Australians love to gather around the stunning Christmas bush to sing carols and enjoy festive treats.
Synonyms
1
8.0
An Australian tree with bright yellow-orange flowers seen in December
A small Australian tree or bush with bright red flowers used at Christmas
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound is directly compositional: 'Christmas' specifies an association (time or occasion) and 'bush' names a plant, so a learner who knows both words will reasonably infer a plant associated with or used at Christmas (e.g., decorative shrub). This is a common noun‑compound pattern cross‑linguistically, so the overall sense is immediately accessible even if the learner doesn't know the specific Australian species.
Etymology
Christmas bush gets its name from a simple picture: it is a bush that flowers with bright red blooms around Christmas in Australia. Because people used these red flowers as a 'decoration' at the holiday, the name now means the shrub used for Christmas decoration.