Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Iris
/ˈaɪrɪs/noun
The coloured ring around the pupil of the eye, or a genus of showy flowers.
The Greek roots
ἶρις
îris
rainbow
Literally: “rainbow”
Follow a root:ἶρις2 words
The story of the word
Iris was the messenger of the gods, who came down the rainbow the way Hermes came by air, and the goddess and the common noun are one word. Anatomy took it for the coloured disc of the eye and botany for a flower that comes in almost any shade a bulb can produce. Iridescent belongs here, and so does iridium, named in 1803 for the many colours of its salts.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 14th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
iridescentiridiumiritisiridology
In a sentence
The scanner reads the iris in about a second.
Blue irises came up along the ditch every June.