Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Amaryllis
/ˌæməˈrɪlɪs/noun
A bulb plant bearing large trumpet-shaped flowers on a bare stalk.
The Greek roots
Ἀμαρυλλίς
Amaryllís
a shepherdess's name
Literally: “the sparkling one”
Follow a root:Ἀμαρυλλίς1 word
The story of the word
The name belongs to a country girl in Theocritus, and again in Virgil's Eclogues, where a shepherd sings to her outside her cave. Linnaeus lifted it for the plant in 1753. Most bulbs sold as amaryllis at Christmas are botanically Hippeastrum, a South American genus whose name is also Greek and means knight's star. The link to ἀμαρύσσω, to sparkle, is likely but not certain.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 18th century
In a sentence
The amaryllis opened on Boxing Day, three weeks late.