winter sweet
1
8.1
- noun
- She planted a winter sweet near the entrance for a pleasant scent throughout the winter.
Examples
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The winter sweet blooms in January.
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The winter sweet filled the garden with a delightful fragrance in early spring.
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Botanists have long admired the resilience of winter sweet in rocky Cretan soil.
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I love the smell of winter sweet flowers.
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She planted a winter sweet near the entrance for a pleasant scent throughout the winter.
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The winter sweet filled the garden with a delightful fragrance in early spring.
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I love the smell of winter sweet flowers.
Synonyms
1
9.9
A bush from Japan and China with sweet smelling yellow flowers in winter
1
9.9
A small Asian shrub with fragrant winter flowers
A group of small Asian shrubs with fragrant yellow flowers that bloom in winter
A bush from Japan with sweet-smelling yellow flowers
A shrub from Japan with yellow flowers that smell sweet
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound is transparently built from 'winter' (the cold season) + 'sweet' (having a pleasant scent), so a learner who knows both words can infer it denotes something with a sweet fragrance associated with winter (i.e., a plant that smells sweet when it blooms in winter). This adjective+noun compounding pattern is common and cross-linguistically accessible, so the meaning should be clear to a B1 learner.
Etymology
Winter sweet comes from the simple picture of a shrub that gives a sweet smell in winter. Because its fragrant flowers bloom in the cold months, people called the plant winter sweet, which explains why the name means a sweet-smelling shrub in winter.