antirrhinum

antirrhinum (an-tuh-RAI-nuhm) - n., any of about thirty plants of genus Antirrhinum, the snapdragons, esp. A. majus, common snapdragon, cultivated as ornamentals.



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Roughly thirty species -- given how any cultivated species gets interbred, the exact count is a little fluid. Antirrhinum came to us around 1550 from the Latin name for snapdragons, from Ancient Greek antirrhīnon, snapdragon, from anti- in the unusual sense of resembling (an extension its "equivalent to" sense, a metaphoric extension of it's "against" sense) + rhin-, combining form of rhis, nose -- "looks like a snout." Snapdragon, on the other hand, is from how, when you squeeze the flower's "throat," its "mouth" snaps open supposedly like a dragon's mouth.

(I swear, the number of ways I mistyped "snapdragon," writing this up ... )

---L.