cuckoopint
Apr. 13th, 2016 08:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodwordcuckoopint (KOO-koo-pīnt) - n., a tuberous herb of the arum family (Arum maculatum) of southern Europe and northern Africa with arrowhead-shaped leaves and poisonous red berries; a similar, related Mediterranean plant (Arum italicum).
Also called lords-and-ladies, Adam-and-Eve, starchwort, jack-in-the-pulpit, and several other names, many of them referring (as this entry does) to how the flower's spadix resembles a penis (and the leaflike spathe surrounding it somewhat like vulva) -- pintle being a commen Middle English term for a penis, which here got shortened to -pint in 1551. Cuckoo is from the bird.
---L.
Also called lords-and-ladies, Adam-and-Eve, starchwort, jack-in-the-pulpit, and several other names, many of them referring (as this entry does) to how the flower's spadix resembles a penis (and the leaflike spathe surrounding it somewhat like vulva) -- pintle being a commen Middle English term for a penis, which here got shortened to -pint in 1551. Cuckoo is from the bird.
---L.
