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flower head

flower head

1 3.0
A tight group of small flowers that look like one flower
  • noun
  • /ˈflaʊər hɛd/
  • Specialized
translation icon : capítulo
  • During the summer, the sunflower's large flower heads attract many pollinators with their bright colors.
  • yellow flower heads
  • rosy flower heads
  • pink flower heads

Examples

  • The boy is working at a basketful of flower heads, pulling petals and separating the hearts, putting them in a large jar of colored liquid.

    Fiction book (1993)
  • The garden was vibrant with clover's flower heads, making it look like a single beautiful bloom.

  • And so each one of these flower heads here have hundreds of seeds on them.

  • As many as 500 individual flowers are crowded into each flower head.

    Academic text (1995)
  • And that kind of flower head needs to be pollinated.

  • When the plant is several years old, cream-colored flower heads develop at the top in a two- to three-foot-long spray.

    Academic text (1995)
  • They're kind of like the spring allium but they have a smaller flower head and they just bloom so many more blooms.

  • Spines radiating out from beneath the plant's flower head discourage grazing.

    Academic text (2004)
  • When the boat had passed, the flower heads bobbed up again, gently swaying from side to side, almost, she thought, as if to bid the passengers farewell.

    Fiction book (1992)
  • The playwright takes a shallow bowl, pours water from the vase into it, and floats the flower heads in it.

    Fiction book (2000)

Synonyms

inflorescence
vsflower head
  • Specialized
1 8.8

The whole flower head with its flowers and small stems on a plant

is focused only on the dense flowers themselves, not the supporting parts
flower cluster
vsflower head
  • Specialized
1 2.7

A group of flowers that grow close together on a plant

is specifically a very tight formation that looks like a single flower
capitulum
vsflower head
  • Specialized
9.9

A dense head of many small flowers at the top of a plant like a daisy

is a dense cluster but described in common, nontechnical language

How Compact

flower head
  • Specialized
1 3.0
flower cluster
  • Specialized
1 2.7
spray
4 3.5

Surface Forms

flower head singular
flower heads plural

Morphology

flower + head

The meaning is directly built from 'flower' (the plant's reproductive part) + 'head' (the rounded/top part), so a learner who knows both words can readily infer a rounded/top part composed of flowers. This literal, descriptive compounding is common cross-linguistically and requires little specialized botanical knowledge, making it transparent to B1 learners.

Etymology

Flower head comes from a simple picture: many tiny flowers are packed close together to form a round head that looks like one big flower. So, it means 'a group of many small flowers that looks like a single flower'.