Other forms: irises
An iris is a tall flower with three petals up and three hanging down. A purple iris, irises by the pond, plant an iris.
The three drooping petals are called falls and the three upright ones standards, and the pattern is the same in every species. The coloured part of the eye has the same name, from the same Greek word for a rainbow. Note that the fleur-de-lis is an iris rather than a lily.
1nounirisA tall flower with three upright and three drooping petals.
“Purple irises grew tall along the edge of the pond.”
2nouncolouredThe coloured part of the eye.
“Her eyes were striking, with a pale green iris ringed in dark grey.”
iris is a flower, or an eye part.
Latin iris comes from Greek iris, a rainbow, from the many colours of the flower and of the eye.
Proto-Indo-European
*weh₁y-
Middle English
iris
Latin
iris
English, today
iris
Built from
Borrowed from Latin iris. From Middle English iris, from Latin īris, from Ancient Greek ἶρις (“rainbow”). Presuming an earlier form ϝῖρις, possibly from a derivative of Proto-Indo-European weh₁irós (“a twist, thread, cord, wire”), from weh₁y- (“to turn, twist, weave, plait”). If so, it would be cognate to wire.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Trees & Flowers