lily of the Incas
- noun
:
lirio de los Incas
- The lily of the Incas is native to the Andes and thrives in well-drained soil.
Examples
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She planted lily of the Incas in her garden to add a splash of color every spring.
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At the florist's, I admired a bouquet featuring bright pink lily of the Incas.
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Look at the lily of the Incas!
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The lily of the Incas blooms beautifully in the summer.
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At the florist's, I admired a bouquet featuring bright pink lily of the Incas.
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She planted lily of the Incas in her garden to add a splash of color every spring.
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The lily of the Incas is native to the Andes and thrives in well-drained soil.
Synonyms
A South American flowering plant with long, colorful blooms often used as cut flowers
A plant with clusters of long-lasting pinkish flowers grown in gardens or used in bouquets
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is compositionally built: 'lily' (a flowering plant) + 'of the Incas' indicates association or origin with the Inca people/region, so a learner can infer it refers to a lily from the Andes or linked to the Incas. The 'of' possessive/associative pattern is common cross-linguistically, making the meaning directly derivable for a B1 learner who knows the constituent words.
Etymology
Lily of the Incas comes from a simple picture: the plant looks like a small lily and it comes from the lands of the Incas high in the Andes. That's why the name is used for 'a South American plant with showy, lily-like flowers'.
