laburnum

See also: Laburnum

English

Laburnum anagyroides

Wikispecies

Etymology

Latin laburnum

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ləˈbɝnəm/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ləˈbɜːnəm/

Noun

laburnum (plural laburnums)

1. Any tree of genus Laburnum. They have bright yellow flowers and are poisonous.

   Synonyms: golden chain, golden rain

   • 1891, Oscar Wilde, chapter I, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, London, New York, N.Y., Melbourne, Vic.: Ward Lock & Co., →OCLC, page 1:

     […] Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flame-like as theirs[.]

   • 1950, C. S. Lewis, chapter 11, in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Collins, published 1998:

     The trees began to come fully alive. The larches and birches were covered with green, the laburnums with gold.

Translations

any tree of genus Laburnum

• Bulgarian: златен дъжд m (zlaten dǎžd)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 毒豆 (dúdòu), 金鏈花／金链花 (jīnliànhuā), 金急雨 (jīnjíyǔ), 臘腸樹／腊肠树 (làchángshù)

• Finnish: kultasadepensas, kultasade (fi)
• French: cytise (fr) m, laburnum (fr) m
• German: Goldregen m
• Hungarian: aranyeső (hu)
• Italian: maggiociondolo (it) m, laburno m
• Latin: laburnum n
• Polish: złotokap m, złotodeszcz m
• Russian: раки́тник (ru) m (rakítnik), золото́й дождь (ru) m (zolotój doždʹ)
• Swedish: gullregn (sv) n
• Venetian: ègano m

Anagrams

• alburnum

Latin

Etymology

Unknown. Some possibilities include:

• from Etruscan, due to the -rno- element as also in vīburnum, alburnus;
• from a Mediterranean substrate word of the form *lapa or *laba “rock” (Latin lapis), in reference to the terrain where the plant grows;
• if the first element is Latin (through folk etymology or otherwise), this might be labrum (“a lip”) or lābor (“to glide down”) +‎ -urnus depending on the length of the vowel. For the former derivation compare Old English smǣre (“lip(s)”), Danish smære (“clover”), Icelandic smæra (“bermuda buttercup”).

Compare labrūsca.

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /laˈbur.num/, [ɫ̪äˈbʊrnʊ̃ˑ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /laˈbur.num/, [läˈburnum]
• Note: the length of the first vowel is unknown.

Noun

laburnum n (genitive laburnī); second declension

1. plant of the genus Laburnum, golden chain

Declension

Second-declension noun (neuter).

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	laburnum	laburna
Genitive	laburnī	laburnōrum
Dative	laburnō	laburnīs
Accusative	laburnum	laburna
Ablative	laburnō	laburnīs
Vocative	laburnum	laburna

Further reading

• “laburnum”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• laburnum in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.