houseleek

English

common houseleek on a roof in Belgium (Sempervivum tectorum)

Etymology

From Middle English houslek, probably from Old English *hūslēac, from Proto-West Germanic *hūsalauk. Cognate with Dutch huislook, German Hauslauch, Danish husløg, Swedish huslök. By surface analysis, house +‎ leek.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈhaʊsliːk/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Noun

houseleek (plural houseleeks)

1. Any of several succulent plants, of the genus Sempervivum, having a rosette of fleshy leaves.
   • 1847, editorial staff, “A Cure for Deafness”, in Scientific American, series 1, Volume 3, Issue 10, page 74:

     Equal parts of the juice of house-leek, brandy and sweet-oil in a phial, to be hung up and exposed to the sun for a month or more.

Synonyms

• ay-green, ayegreen
• bullock's eye
• cyphel (archaic)
• foose (dialectal)
• fouat, fouet (Scotland)
• full (obsolete, rare)
• healing blade
• healing leaf
• homewort (now historical and rare)
• house-green (chiefly in English regional use, now rare)
• Jove's beard
• jubarb (obsolete)
• Jupiter's beard
• Jupiter's eye
• liveforever
• seagreen (obsolete)
• sedum (obsolete)
• semper-vivens (obsolete, rare)
• sempervive (obsolete)
• sempervivum
• sengreen (now dialectal)
• thunder-plant
• welcome-home-husband-though-never-so-drunk

Hyponyms

• hen and chicken (Sempervivum globiferum)

Derived terms

• cobweb houseleek (Sempervivum arachnoideum)
• cottony houseleek (Sempervivum arachnoideum)
• dwarf houseleek (Sedum reflexum)
• roof houseleek (Sempervivum tectorum)

Translations

Sempervivum

• Arabic: حَيّ الْعَالَم m (ḥayy al-ʕālam)
• Aramaic:

  Jewish Babylonian Aramaic: חַיָּיא לְעָלְמָא m (ḥayyā lə-ʿāləmā)

• Bulgarian: дебелец m (debelec), ушно биле n (ušno bile)
• Danish: husløg c
• Dutch: huislook (nl) m
• Faroese: tekjuleykur m
• Finnish: mehitähti (fi)
• French: joubarbe (fr) f
• Galician: herba tioura f, herba punteira f
• German: Hauswurz (de) f or m
• Greek:

  Ancient Greek: ἀείζωον (aeízōon)

• Hebrew: חַי הָעוֹלָם m (ḥay hā-ʿōlā́m), חַי לְעוֹלָם m (ḥay lə-ʿōlā́m) (Medieval)
• Hungarian: kövirózsa (hu)
• Irish: buachaill tí m
• Ladino: siemprebive f
• Latin: aesum n, sempervīvum n, stergethron m
• Macedonian: чува́ркуќа f (čuvárkuḱa), пазикуќа f pl (pazikuḱa)
• Norman: jombarbe f (Jersey)
• Polish: rojnik (pl) m
• Portuguese: sempre-viva f
• Romanian: borșișor (ro) m
• Russian: молоди́ло (ru) n (molodílo), живу́чка (ru) f (živúčka), ка́менная ро́за f (kámennaja róza)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: čuvàrkuća f

  Latin: čuvàrkuća f

• Slovene: netrêsk m
• Spanish: siempreviva f
• Swedish: taklök c
• Turkish:

  Ottoman Turkish: قولاق اوتی (kulak otu)

• Welsh: llysiau pen tai m pl

References

• houseleek on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Sempervivum on Wikispecies.Wikispecies
• Category:Sempervivum on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons