fairy lantern
- noun
- Specialized
:
linterna de hadas
- Gardeners are drawn to the fairy lantern for its unique, egg-shaped blossoms.
Examples
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The fairy lantern blooms in the spring, adding delicate beauty to California meadows.
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Botanists admired the rare fairy lantern they discovered along the woodland trail.
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Look at that fairy lantern!
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What a beautiful fairy lantern!
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Botanists admired the rare fairy lantern they discovered along the woodland trail.
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Gardeners are drawn to the fairy lantern for its unique, egg-shaped blossoms.
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The fairy lantern blooms in the spring, adding delicate beauty to California meadows.
Synonyms
A North American plant with small round flowers often grown in gardens
A group of bulb plants with bright, tulip-like flowers from western North America
Surface Forms
Morphology
fairy + lantern
The name evokes a small, lantern-like object (combining 'fairy' and 'lantern'), so there is a clear metaphorical link to the constituents based on appearance. However, the fact that the term refers specifically to a plant species with egg-shaped flowers is not directly predictable from the words alone, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents might guess a decorative object rather than identify it as a flower. Because the connection is based on resemblance but does not fully reveal the referent, this is only partially transparent.
Etymology
The name fairy lantern comes from the plant's small, egg-shaped flowers that hang like tiny lamps. People imagined these were little lanterns for fairies, so the phrase came to mean this 'plant'.
