Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Dandelion |
DandelionNoun1. Any of several herbs of the genus Taraxacum having long tap roots and deeply notched leaves and bright yellow flowers followed by fluffy seed balls. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "dandelion" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1861. (references) |
Etymology: Dandelion \Dan"de*li`on\, noun. [French expression dent de lion lion's tooth, from the Latin expression dens tooth leo lion. See Tooth, noun, and Lion.]. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Botanical | (Fig. 295). (references) |
Dream Interpretation | Dandelions blossoming in green foliage, foretells happy unions and prosperous surroundings. Source: Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted .... |
Food & Agriculture | A member of the sunflower family, the green leaves are picked before yellow dandelion flowers develop. They have slightly bitter taste, similar to chicory and are eaten mostly raw in salads. Source: European Union. (references) |
Literature | Dandelion A flower. The word is a corruption of the French dent de lion (lion's tooth), Also called Leontodon (lion-tooth, Greek), from a supposed resemblance between its leaves and the teeth of lions. Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
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Dandelion Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae Division: Magnoliophyta Class: Magnoliopsida Order: Asterales Family: Asteraceae Genus: Taraxacum Species Taraxacum officinale
Taraxacum japonicum
Taraxacum albidum
and a few others.
The dandelion (Taraxacum officinale, Family Asteraceae) is a taprooted annual or biennial plant, found in most temperate zone gardens during the summer months. Dandelions were originally widely distributed throughout Eurasia, but were introduced to North America and Australia because of their many uses. They have thrived in these new locations. The name dandelion is a corruption of the Old French, dent-de-lion, literally "lion's tooth" on account of the sharply lobed leaves of the plant.
The leaves are simple and basal, entire or lobed, forming a rosette above a central taproot. A bright yellow flower head is borne singly on a hollow "stem" (scape) rising above the leaves and exudes a milky substance when broken. A rosette may produce more than one scape at a time. The flower head consists entirely of ray florets and matures into a globe of fine filaments that are usually distributed by wind, carrying away the seed-containing achenes. This globe is called the "dandelion clock", and blowing it apart is a popular pastime for children.
''Larger bee on dandelion image ''Some dandelions are apomictic (self-pollinating) and polyploidy is common. Some varieties drop the "parachute" (called a pappus) from the achenes. Ergo, there are "species" (apomictic and polyploid races) that grow only in a single meadow. This is one reason for there being a large number of described dandelion "species", especially in Europe where botanists tend to be "splitters". As an example, some botanists list a few hundred species of dandelion from Finland alone. Others are inclined to lump these all into Taraxacum officinale.
While the dandelion is considered a weed by many gardeners, the plant does have several culinary and medicinal uses. Dandelions are grown commercially as produce on a small scale. The plant can be eaten cooked or raw in various forms, such as in soup or salad. Usually the young leaves are eaten raw in salads while older leaves are cooked. Dandelion blossoms are used to make dandelion wine. Dandelions are high in vitamin A and also are a source of vitamin C. Ground roasted dandelion root is sometimes used as a coffee substitute. Drunk before meals, this is believed to stimulate digestive functions; this product is sold in some health food stores, often as a mixture of Dandelion and Burdock. It should be noted that uncooked, the dandelion has a diuretic effect and is known in France as pissenlit (literally, "wet the bed") for precisely this reason. Dandelion root is a registered drug in Canada, sold as a diuretic.
Dandelion clock, partially blown
showing brown achenes and attached pappusesSee: How to cook dandelions
Species
- Taraxacum officinale, dandelion. Found in many forms, but differs at least from the following species:
- Taraxacum albidum, a white-flowering Japanese dandelion.
- Taraxacum japonicum, Japanese dandelion. No ring of smallish, downward-turned leaves under the flowerhead.
- Taraxacum laevigatum (syn. T. erythrospermum) — achenes reddish brown and leaves deeply cut throughout length.
- and others.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Dandelion."
| The following table is compiled from various sources, across various languages. When English abbreviations or acronyms come from a non-English source, this is noted. | |||
| Entry | Source | Expression | Field |
DANDELION | English | Discourse Functions and Discourse Representation:an Empirically and Linguistically Motivated,Interdisciplinary Approach to Natural-Language Texts | Computing, European Union |
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |||
Synonym: DandelionSynonym: blowball (n). (additional references) |
Crosswords: Dandelion |
| English words defined with "dandelion": aster family, Asteraceae ♦ cobwebby, Compositae, Compound flower ♦ dandelion green, diaphanous ♦ family Asteraceae, family Compositae, filmy, fuzzed, fuzzy ♦ gauzy, gossamer ♦ hawkweed ♦ kok-saghyz, kok-sagyz ♦ Liguliflorous ♦ Pissabed ♦ runcinate, runcinate leaf, Russian dandelion ♦ see-through, Semiflosculous, sheer ♦ Taraxacum kok-saghyz, transparent ♦ vaporous. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "dandelion": Flora's Dial ♦ milk gowan. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Lyrics | Blow away dandelion, blow away dandelion (DANDELION; performing artist: The Rolling Stones) Dandelion don't tell no lies (DANDELION; performing artist: The Rolling Stones) You can play this dandelion game (DANDELION; performing artist: The Rolling Stones) Sleeping on a dandelion. (Flaming; performing artist: Pink Floyd) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Dandelion (2003) The Dandelion Crown (1993) Dandelion Dead (1993) | |
Song Titles | Dandelion (performing artist: Gary Rosen) Dandelion (performing artist: The Rolling Stones) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
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Periodicals |
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Theater & Movies | |||
Music |
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High Tech |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Sweat bees: Small wild bees such as this one visiting a dandelion are often attracted by salty sweat on hot days. P. Credit: USDA ARS News; photo by Scott Bauer.. |  | Farshot of False dandelion, Agoseris glauca. Credit: John Craig. |
 | Closeup shot of False dandelion, Agoseris glauca. Credit: John Craig. |  | Medium shot of prairie dandelion (Microseris troximoides) and upland larkspur (Delphinium nuttallianum). Credit: John Craig. |
 | Long shot of wild Dandelion. Credit: John Craig. |  | Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) at Aunt Caroline's Park in Shady Cove. Credit: Terry Tuttle. |
 | Line engraving published in "Harper's Weekly", January-June 1863, page 196, depicting the bombardment of Fort McAllister by the U.S. Navy monitors Passaic, Patapsco and Nahant. The engraving is based on a sketch by "an eye-witness" on board USS Montauk, which is in the right center foreground. In the left foreground, firing on the fort, are the mortar schooners C.P. Williams, Norfolk Packet and Para. Among other U.S. Navy ships involved were gunboats Wissahickon, Seneca and Dawn and tug Dandelion. Credit: NAVY. |  | Dandelion / par P.J. Redouté. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
 |  |
| "Dandelion" by Taryn . Commentary: "It's a dandelion." | "Dandelion 2" by Bill Thearle Commentary: "Dandelion." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. | |
| "Dandelion" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 92.50% of the time. "Dandelion" is used about 80 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 92.5% | 74 | 38,813 |
| Noun (proper) | 7.5% | 6 | 143,867 |
| Total | 100.00% | 80 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "dandelion": California dandelion ♦ common dandelion ♦ dandelion green ♦ dwarf dandelion ♦ fall dandelion ♦ Krigia dandelion ♦ Russian dandelion. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "dandelion": dandelion-dotted. | |
Ending with "dandelion": a-dandelion. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "dandelion"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | luleradhiqe (taraxacum). (various references) | |
Blackfoot | naató'sipisátssaisski. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | глухарче (taraxacum). (various references) | |
Chinese | 蒲公英. (various references) | |
Cornish | dans-lew. (various references) | |
Czech | pampeliška. (various references) | |
Danish | mælkebøtte (milk gowan), loevetand (milk gowan), løvetand (milk gowan), fandens maelkeboette (milk gowan). (various references) | |
Dutch | paardebloem (milk gowan), leeuwetand. (various references) | |
Esperanto | leontodo. (various references) | |
Faeroese | hagasólja. (various references) | |
Farsi | قاصدک . (various references) | |
Finnish | voikukka (milk gowan). (various references) | |
French | pissenlit. (various references) | |
Frisian | tiksel. (various references) | |
German | Löwenzahn (milk gowan). (various references) | |
Greek | πικραλίδα (chicory). (various references) | |
Hungarian | pitypang (blow ball, blow-ball, taraxacum), gyermekláncfű. (various references) | |
Indonesian | bunga dandelion. (various references) | |
Italian | tarassaco (milk gowan), dente di leone (dandelions). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 蒲公英 . (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | たんぽぽ. (various references) | |
Korean | 민들레. (various references) | |
Manx | lus y vinnagh (treacle mustard), lus ny minnag. (various references) | |
Norwegian | løvetann. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | andelionday.(various references) | |
Portuguese | dente-de-leão (blow ball). (various references) | |
Romanian | pãpãdie. (various references) | |
Russian | одуванчик (blowball, taraxacum). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | maslačak (taraxacum). (various references) | |
Spanish | diente de león. (various references) | |
Swedish | maskros. (various references) | |
Turkish | karahindiba, hindiba (chicory, endive, succory). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | кульбаба. (various references) | |
Welsh | dant y llew. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | Taraxacum densleonis, Taraxacum officinale, Taraxacum sect obliqua. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "dandelion": dandelions. (additional references) | |
| |
"Dandelion" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: adrelion, daedalian, Daidalaion, D'amelio, dandeliom, dandelioned, dandilion, Danielyan, Dentelin, Dinkeloo. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| Words rhyming with "dandelion" (pronounced 'Dan"de*li`on'): Ant-lion, Court-baron, Muskmelon, snapdragon, Watermelon. (additional references) |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-d-d-e-i-l-n-n-o" | |
-1 letter: nonideal. | |
-2 letters: adenoid, annelid, lindane. | |
-3 letters: alined, dandle, denial, dialed, dildoe, dindle, dinned, doiled, donned, eidola, eolian, eonian, indole, inland, laddie, ladino, landed, linden, loaded, loaned, nailed, noddle, online. | |
-4 letters: addle, aided, ailed, alien, aline, aloin, alone, anile, anion, anode, anole, danio, dedal, dildo, dined, diode, doled, donna, donne, elain, eland, eloin, ideal, idled. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-d-d-e-i-l-n-n-o" | |
+1 letter: dandelions. | |
+2 letters: nondisabled. | |
+3 letters: nondisableds. | |
+5 letters: denationalized, endodontically, unconsolidated. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Images: Digital Art | 9. Usage Frequency 10. Expressions 11. Expressions: Internet 12. Translations: Modern | 13. Translations: Ancient 14. Abbreviations 15. Acronyms 16. Derivations | 17. Rhymes 18. Anagrams 19. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
