West Indian jasmine
- noun
- US
:
jazmín de las Indias Occidentales
- The garden was filled with the sweet scent of West Indian jasmine in full bloom.
Examples
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The West Indian jasmine blooms beautifully in the spring.
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She planted a row of West Indian jasmine along the pathway to create a colorful border.
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Many landscapers choose West Indian jasmine for its striking yellow flowers and pleasant fragrance.
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I planted a West Indian jasmine in my garden last year.
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Many landscapers choose West Indian jasmine for its striking yellow flowers and pleasant fragrance.
-
The garden was filled with the sweet scent of West Indian jasmine in full bloom.
-
She planted a row of West Indian jasmine along the pathway to create a colorful border.
Synonyms
A tall tropical tree with large, sweet-smelling white and yellow flowers
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is a straightforward place + noun composition: 'West Indian' (from the West Indies) modifying 'jasmine' (a fragrant plant), so the meaning 'a jasmine from the West Indies' can be directly inferred from the constituents. This place-based compositional pattern is common across languages and would be understandable to a B1 learner who knows the component words (with 'West' disambiguating the sense of 'Indian').
Etymology
West Indian jasmine may come from early visitors who found a tall, fragrant tree growing in the West Indies and thought its yellow flowers smelled like true jasmine. So the name now tells you it is a tree from the 'West Indies' with a 'jasmine-like' scent.
