poinsettia
poyn-SET-ee-uh · noun
LatinEnglish
Origin
The word comes from the obsolete genus name Poinsettia, honoring Joel Roberts Poinsett, a 19th-century US minister to Mexico, formed with the suffix -ia.
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Journey
The name began as a scientific genus title built directly on a person's surname, and passed into everyday English as the common name for the plant itself.
Related words
It's tied to the surname Poinsett — the personal name doing double duty as a plant name, joined by the Latinate suffix -ia.
More words
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