Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of various plants of the genus Calceolaria native from Mexico to South America and widely cultivated for their showy, speckled, slipper-shaped flowers.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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On the wetter slopes, fields were laid out like checkerboards, lined with eucalyptus and agave, and those that had been left fallow were thick with cosmos and zinnias, helianthus, bidens, and calceolaria, all yellows and golds and reds.
One River Wade Davis 1996
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On the wetter slopes, fields were laid out like checkerboards, lined with eucalyptus and agave, and those that had been left fallow were thick with cosmos and zinnias, helianthus, bidens, and calceolaria, all yellows and golds and reds.
One River Wade Davis 1996
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Slowly they would pace along, enjoying the sweeter air of the suburbs, or, gardenless themselves, would stand to peep through garden-gates at the well-ordered array of geranium, calceolaria, verbena; sniffing the fragrance from the serried rows of stocks, the patches of mignonette, or the blossoming lime-trees overhead.
Mrs. Day's Daughters Mary E. Mann
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The vegetables seem in perfect harmony with yellow marigolds and calceolaria.
When the Birds Begin to Sing Harold Piffard
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The calceolaria of the present day has [v. 04 p. 0969] been developed into a highly decorative plant, in which the herbaceous habit has preponderated.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" Various
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Shoot in a rose, or a calceolaria, or an herbaceous border, or something, I gather, and you have made a formal proposal of marriage without any of the trouble of rehearsing a long speech and practising appropriate gestures in front of your bedroom looking-glass.
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Abutilons; agapanthus; alstremeria; amaryllis; anemone; aralia; araucaria; auricula; azaleas; begonias; cactus; caladium; calceolaria; calla; camellias; cannas; carnations; century plants; chrysanthemums; cineraria; clematis; coleus; crocus; croton; cyclamen; dahlia; ferns; freesia; fuchsia; geranium; gladiolus; gloxinia; grevillea; hollyhocks; hyacinths; iris; lily; lily-of-the-valley; mignonette; moon-flowers; narcissus; oleander; oxalis; palms; pandanus; pansy; pelargonium; peony; phlox; primulas; rhododendrons; rose; smilax; stocks; sweet pea; swainsona; tuberose; tulips; violet; wax plant.
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Pocket, who had been expelled from the company by common consent, went sulkily away towards her hammock, for she was the fairy of the calceolaria, and looked rather wicked.
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Tight beds of geranium, calceolaria, and lobelia speckled the glass-plat, from whose centre rose one of the finest araucarias (its other name by the way is "monkey-puzzler"), that it has ever been my lot to see.
Actions and Reactions Rudyard Kipling 1900
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I haven't been so excited since I recognised a calceolaria last year, and told my host it was a calceolaria just before he told me.
Punch, or the London Charivari, May 27, 1914 Various 1898
knitandpurl commented on the word calceolaria
"The Wheelwrights' house was very interesting, though rather dim because all the windows were smothered under a profusion of potted plants. There were red geraniums, and fuchsias whose blossoms hung from their stems like costly earrings, and great overgrown begonias, and calceolarias all covered with little speckled calico pocketbooks."
The Four-Story Mistake by Elizabeth Enright, p 54 of the 2002 hardcover edition
July 6, 2011