creeping Jenny
- noun
- /ˈkripɪŋ ˈdʒɛni/
:
jenny rastrera
- The vibrant yellow flowers of creeping Jenny bloom beautifully in the spring.
- golden creeping Jenny
Examples
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The Goldilocks creeping Jenny is looking maybe a little bit sun weary, which boy, I'm gonna have to keep my eye on that.
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She planted creeping Jenny along the garden path to create beautiful ground cover.
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Creeping Jenny is a popular choice for gardeners looking to add color to their landscape.
Synonyms
Low plant with round leaves and bright yellow flowers that spreads to cover the ground in gardens
A low creeping plant with round leaves and yellow flowers that grows in wet places
How Spreading
Surface Forms
Morphology
creep + Jenny
The adjective 'creeping' clearly signals a trailing or spreading growth habit, so a learner who knows 'creep' can infer this is a plant that spreads along the ground. However, 'Jenny' is an arbitrary proper name with no descriptive meaning, so the exact referent/species is lexicalized and not fully predictable from the parts, giving only partial transparency.
Etymology
Creeping Jenny gets its name from how it grows: creeping because its stems slowly spread across the ground, and Jenny as a friendly name for the small plant. That's why the name tells you it is often used as 'ground cover'.