centaurea

See also: Centaurea and centáurea

English

Etymology

From the genus name.

Noun

centaurea (plural centaureas)

1. Any of the plants in the genus Centaurea.
   • 1850, Harper's Magazine, volume 1, page 449:

     The marjorum stood in ruddy and fragrant masses; harebells and campanulas of several kinds, that are cultivated in our gardens, with bells large and clear; crimson pinks; the Michaelmas daisy; a plant with a thin, radiated yellow flower, of the character of an aster; a centaurea of a light purple, handsomer than any English one; a thistle in the dryest places, resembling an eryngo, with a thick, bushy top; mulleins, yellow and white; the wild mignonnette, and the white convolvulus; and clematis festooning the bushes, recalled the flowery fields and lanes of England, and yet told us that we were not there.

   • 1873, Michigan State Pomological Society, Annual Report of the Michigan State Pomological Society, volume 2, page 131:

     Its border is of tri-colored and quadricolored geranium leaves, intermingled with leaves of the highly tinted coleus and the hoary centaurea.

   • 1953, The Visual Garden Manual, page 48:

     Two of the best-known annual centaureas are C. cyanus (cornflower or Bachelor’s button) and C. moschata (Sweet Sultan).

   • 1975, Ippolito Pizzetti, Henry Cocker, Flowers: a Guide for Your Garden, volume 1, page 205:

     The ancient Greeks believed that when Chiron was wounded in the foot by an arrow that Hercules had poisoned with the blood of the Hydra he cured himself by treating the wound with the sap of a centaurea. However, in actual fact, none of the centaureas, like the majority of the family Compositae in general, possess any great medicinal properties.

   • 2000, Shane Smith, Greenhouse Gardener's Companion: Growing Food and Flowers in Your Greenhouse Or Sunspace, →ISBN, page 194:

     Another type of centaurea, which has an interesting flower with sharp pointed tips, is Centaurea moschata. It is also fragrant and will need staking like the other centaureas but usually doesn’t bloom quite as prolifically.

Related terms

• centaury

References

• “centaurea”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.

Italian

Noun

centaurea f (plural centauree)

1. centaury, star thistle (Centaurea)

Latin

Alternative forms

• centauria

Etymology

Accessory form of centaurēum in the Herbarium of Pseudo-Apuleius, from Ancient Greek κενταύρειον (kentaúreion, “several plants related to Centaurea”), from κένταυρος (kéntauros, “centaur”) (due to the mythological discovery of its medicinal properties by Chiron the Centaur).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ken.tau̯ˈreː.a/, [kɛn̪t̪äu̯ˈreːä]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /t͡ʃen.tau̯ˈre.a/, [t͡ʃen̪t̪äu̯ˈrɛːä]

Noun

centaurēa f (genitive centaurēae); first declension

1. (Medieval Latin) Alternative form of centaurēum

Declension

First-declension noun.

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	centaurēa	centaurēae
Genitive	centaurēae	centaurēārum
Dative	centaurēae	centaurēīs
Accusative	centaurēam	centaurēās
Ablative	centaurēā	centaurēīs
Vocative	centaurēa	centaurēae

Descendants

• → Arabic: جِنْتَوْرِيَّة (jintawriyya)
• → Dutch: centaurie
• → Old English: centaurie
  • → Middle English: centaure
    • → English: centaury
• → Catalan: centaura
• → Czech: čantoryja, čantoryjka, cintorie
• → French: centaurée
• → Ido: centaureo
• → Italian: centaurea
• → Norman: centaurée
• → Occitan: centaurèa
• → Portuguese: centáurea
• → Romanian: cintáură, cintorie, cintoare, țintaură
• → Spanish: centaura
• → Translingual: Centaurea
  • → English: centaurea

References

• “centaurēa”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press