campanulate

[prettygoodword]

campanulate (kam-PAM-yuh-lit) - adj., shaped like a bell.


So not a verb, strictly an adjective, so no stress on the final syllable. This seems to be used only in botany, to describe flowers (and sometimes fruit?) such as the bellflowers, genus Campanula:


Thanks, WikiMedia!

From Latin campanula, little bell, diminutive of campāna, bell, probably from Campānia, modern name Campania, the region of Italy around Naples, which in ancient times was a center of bronze production, used to make bells. So, "little Neapolitan"?

---L.

Comments

[calzephyr]

Ah, creeping bellflower, the zombie weed! It's extremely invasive here. Pretty to look at, though!

[prettygoodword]

Very pretty. I could have used other campanulate flowers, but I couldn't pass up the genus.

[full_metal_ox]

This chain of thought prompts the idea of a bellflower-shaped dish (a readily available thing in Japan; bellflower is one of the Seven Flowers Of Autumn) containing an elegant scoop of layered chocolate-vanilla-and-strawberry ice cream.

[prettygoodword]

That's some deep-level punning there. No idea who might get it.

[lokifan]

That'd be so so good.

[jesse_the_k]

But if it was a verb, it would mean having your head hit so hard that you hear little grawlixes rotating around your brain

[prettygoodword]

Not necessarily! I could mean to ring a bell in general.

[movingfinger]

Isn't campania < campos, field, plains, so this "campanula" might be "small field (flower)(weed)"?

[prettygoodword]

I gather the evidence for the bell meaning in Latin is strong enough to argue against that.

[full_metal_ox]

Roy Campanella, however (who caught balls rather than ringing bells) was of Sicilian rather than Neapolitan descent.

[prettygoodword]

Though his name does also mean "little bell"