white hellebore
- noun
- /ˈhwaɪt ˈhɛlɪbɔr/
- Specialized
:
heleboro blanco
- The roots of white hellebore have been used in traditional medicine, despite their toxicity.
Examples
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Gardeners should handle white hellebore with care because of its poisonous alkaloids.
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The distinctive yellow-green flowers make white hellebore easy to identify in the wild.
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The white hellebore is known for its toxicity.
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Many gardeners admire the white hellebore for its unique flowers.
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Gardeners should handle white hellebore with care because of its poisonous alkaloids.
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The roots of white hellebore have been used in traditional medicine, despite their toxicity.
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The distinctive yellow-green flowers make white hellebore easy to identify in the wild.
Synonyms
A North American plant with large green leaves and yellow-green flowers that contains poisonous chemicals used in some medicines
A North American plant with large leaves and greenish flower clusters that is poisonous and used carefully in medicine
A poisonous plant with large leaves and greenish yellow flower clusters that people use in traditional medicine
A wild plant like a lily that grows every year with large leaves and thick poisonous roots
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is a straightforward adjective + noun composition: 'white' specifies the colour/variant of 'hellebore' (a plant genus). There is no idiomatic or metaphorical shift—learners who know both constituent meanings will infer it denotes a hellebore that is white or pale, a pattern common across languages.
Etymology
White hellebore may come from the old plant name hellebore, a word people long used for a strong, often dangerous root, and the word white was added because parts of the plant look pale. So the name shows a pale plant that is both 'poisonous' and used as 'medicine'.
