prairie aster
- noun
- /ˈprɛəri ˈæstər/
- US
:
aster de pradera
- In late summer, the prairie aster blooms beautifully across the landscape.
Examples
-
He admired the delicate petals of the prairie aster swaying in the breeze.
-
A vase of prairie asters stands over a double-meat cheeseburger, a package of Hostess Twinkies, a cold can of Dr. Pepper, and a Three Musketeers bar.
Fiction book (1993) -
The gardener planted prairie asters to add vibrant color to the flower bed.
Synonyms
A plant with violet flowers that blooms every year in the central United States
Surface Forms
Morphology
This is a straightforward noun–noun compound: aster (a type of flower) located in or associated with the prairie (open grassland). The meaning ‘an aster that grows on/in the prairie’ is directly and transparently derivable from the constituent words and follows common cross-linguistic compounding patterns, so a B1 learner who knows both words will understand it.
Etymology
Prairie aster comes from the words prairie (an open grassland) and aster (a word meaning 'star'). The flower's round center and many thin petals look like a small 'star' on the prairie, so the name means the star-like flowers that grow in grasslands.
