rhodora

noun

rho·​do·​ra rō-ˈdȯr-ə 

: an azalea (Rhododendron canadense) of northeastern North America that has spring-flowering pink blossoms

Example Sentences

Recent Examples on the Web

Botany cannot go farther than tell me the names of the shrubs which grow there,—the high-blueberry, panicled andromeda, lambkill, azalea, and rhodora,—all standing in the quaking sphagnum. —Henry David Thoreau, The Atlantic, 6 Oct. 2017

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from New Latin, genus name used by linnaeus (Species plantarum, 1763, p. 561) for the plant now called Rhodendron canadensis, going back to Latin, an erroneous reading (as an accusative rhodoram) of rodarum in the text of Pliny (Naturalis historia 24.172), a name allegedly used by the Gauls for a plant of uncertain identity

First Known Use

circa 1731, in the meaning defined above