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Glite Dictionary
🍄 A red fungus 🌱 A small plant
fairy cup

fairy cup

9.9
A small plant that comes back every year with two opposite leaves and a stem of white flowers
  • noun
  • /ˈfɛri kʌp/
  • Specialized
translation icon : taza de hadas
  • Many gardeners cherish the fairy cup for its tiny white blossoms and unique foliage.

Examples

  • The delicate fairy cup could be seen blooming along the forest path in early spring.

  • We stopped to admire a patch of fairy cups growing beneath the trees.

  • Look at the fairy cup!

  • The fairy cup blooms beautifully in spring.

  • Many gardeners cherish the fairy cup for its tiny white blossoms and unique foliage.

  • The delicate fairy cup could be seen blooming along the forest path in early spring.

  • We stopped to admire a patch of fairy cups growing beneath the trees.

Synonyms

Mitella diphylla
vsfairy cup
  • Specialized
9.9

Small woodland plant with two opposite leaves and stems of small white flowers

is the common regional name rather than the scientific label

Surface Forms

fairy cup singular
fairy cups plural

Morphology

fairy + cup

The noun combines 'fairy' (suggesting smallness or fancifulness) with 'cup' (a bowl-shaped object), so a learner who knows both words can plausibly guess a small, cup-shaped thing — possibly a flower. However, identifying it specifically as a perennial plant species (miterwort) is not fully predictable from the parts alone and could be misinterpreted as a tiny object or decorative cup; therefore the relation is only partially transparent.

Etymology

The noun fairy cup may come from the plant's small white flowers and leaf shapes that form tiny cups fit for fairies. That's why people call this delicate woodland plant a 'fairy cup'.