A.Word.A.Day --corolla

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corolla

PRONUNCIATION:

(kuh-ROL-uh)

MEANING:

noun: The petals of a flower as a group.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin corolla (little garland), diminutive of corona (wreath, crown, garland), from Greek korone (crown, anything curved). Ultimately from the Indo-European root sker- (to turn or bend), which is also the source of other words such as ranch, rank, shrink, circle, crisp, search, ring, curb, ridge, and curve. Earliest documented use: 1671.

USAGE:

"'Some plants shelter their pollen grains through a change in floral orientation or closing their corolla on rainy days,' explains Shuang-Quan Huang."
Matt Walker; Raindrops Drive Flower Evolution; BBC News (London, UK); Aug 6, 2009.

"The radiographer angled the screen towards me so that I could see the corolla of dark tumours spiralling through my breast."
Sarah Gabriel; My Cancer Heartbreak; Daily Mail (London, UK); Nov 3, 2009.

See more usage examples of corolla in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. -Anatole France, novelist, essayist, Nobel laureate (1844-1924)

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