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petal

UK/ˈpɛtl̩/US/ˈpɛtl̩/
nounA2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #8,815 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: petals

A petal is one soft coloured leaf of a flower. Pull the petals off, a fallen petal, four petals.

The petals together are the corolla, and their colour and pattern are advertising aimed at insects — many carry ultraviolet markings that bees can see and we cannot. The number is often fixed by family: buttercups have five, poppies four. Note petals in the plural for a whole flower's worth; and that in some parts of Britain petal is used as a term of address, roughly like love or duck.

Mariana Ruiz LadyofHats · Public domain

Definitions of petal

  1. 1nounpetalOne soft coloured leaf of a flower.A2+

    “She pulled the petals off a daisy one by one.”

    synonyms: petals

petal is a part of a flower.

Also accepted in games: petals

Where it comes from

Greek petalon means a leaf, from a root meaning to spread out — the same root as Latin patere, to lie open. A petal is named for being spread, which is exactly what it does at dawn.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *peth₂-

  2. Ancient Greek

    πέταλος

  3. English, today

    petal

Built from

  • πέταλος · Ancient Greek — broad, flat

Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek πέταλος. Ancient Greek πέταλον, from πέταλος (“broad, flat”), from Proto-Hellenic pétalos, from Proto-Indo-European peth₂- (“to spread out”), whence Latin pandō and Proto-Germanic faþmaz (“embrace”) (English fathom).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Nature & Weather, Trees & Flowers

Practise this word

petal in the wild

  • All of the petals of a flower are collectively known as the corolla.

    Petal

  • When the petals and sepals of a flower are difficult to distinguish, they are collectively called tepals.

    Petal

  • The term is used when these parts cannot easily be classified as either sepals or petals.

    Tepal

  • The labellum is a modified petal and can be distinguished from the other petals and from the sepals by its large size and its often irregular shape.

    Labellum (botany)

  • In orchids, the labellum is the modified median petal that sits opposite from the fertile anther and usually highly modified from the other perianth segments.

    Labellum (botany)

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.