Mexican sunflower
- noun
- US
:
girasol mexicano
- In Mexico, the Mexican sunflower is often used in landscaping for its tall stature and eye-catching flowers.
- Mexican sunflower (Tithonia rotundifolia)
Examples
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I decided to plant Mexican sunflowers along the fence to attract butterflies and add bright yellow hues to my yard.
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And then we've got the tithonias, the Mexican sunflowers, which you guys were all right.
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The vibrant Mexican sunflower brings a burst of color to the garden with its large orange blooms.
Synonyms
A group of strong flowering plants from Mexico and Central America, like the Mexican sunflower
A tall garden plant with big orange or yellow flowers like sunflowers
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound is a straightforward adjective + noun naming pattern: 'Mexican' (from Mexico) + 'sunflower' (a type of flower) yields a sunflower associated with Mexico. This compositional meaning is directly derivable and mirrors common cross-linguistic patterns for plant names, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will understand it denotes a type of sunflower.
Etymology
Mexican sunflower comes from where the plant came from and how it looks. It grew in Mexico, so Mexican, and its big, round, orange flowers look like a sunflower, so the name means a sunflower-like plant 'from Mexico'.
