Michaelmas daisy
- noun
- US
:
margarita de Micael
- At the flower show, the Michaelmas daisy displayed its vibrant pink blooms, impressing all the visitors.
Examples
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During the fall season, the Michaelmas daisy attracts many bees and butterflies to the garden.
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She was in her garden now and had been out working all afternoon, staking clumps of Michaelmas daisies before the autumn winds arrived to lay them flat.
Fiction book (1990) -
The Michaelmas daisy blooms beautifully in my garden every autumn, adding a splash of color with its purple flowers.
Synonyms
2
7.5
A plant with small purple, pink or white flowers that bloom in autumn
A plant from North America that lives for many years and has small purple, pink, or white flowers in autumn
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound is compositional: 'Michaelmas' (the feast/day in late September) modifies 'daisy' so a learner who knows both words can infer it denotes a kind of daisy associated with Michaelmas — i.e. an autumn-flowering daisy. This follows common naming patterns for plants (place/date/name + noun), making the meaning directly derivable from the constituents.
Etymology
Michaelmas daisy gets its name from when the flowers appear each year. They bloom around the church feast called Michaelmas on September 29. So people put Michaelmas and the small daisy flowers together, and the name now means a plant that blooms in autumn.