dandelion

From Middle English dentdelyon, from Old French dent de lion (“lion's tooth”), also in Latin dēns leōnis, referring to the jagged shape of the plant's leaves. The term is now rare in French (together with liondent, calque from Germanic), but compare Spanish diente de león, Portuguese dente-de-leão, Italian dente di leone, German Löwenzahn, Norwegian Bokmål løvetann, Welsh dant y llew, all descendants, calques, or loan translations of the Latin term.

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈdæn.dɪˌlaɪ.ən/, /ˈdæn.dəˌlaɪ.ən/

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dandelion (countable and uncountable, plural dandelions)

1. (countable) Any of the several species of plant in the genus Taraxacum, characterised by yellow flower heads and notched, broad-ended leaves, especially the common dandelion (Taraxacum officinale).
   • 1910, Joseph Richardson Parke, The Wizard of the Damavant: A Tale of the Crusades, page 151:

     the sanguine hue of the poppy and the hibiscus, the gold of the daisy and dandelion, the dark green of the sorrage on either side, and the blue and purple of the blossoming mulberry and sycamore

   • 2018 April 24, John Launer, “Do We Even Need Men?”, in Literary Hub‎^[1]:

     There are asexual variants among all sorts of creatures, including jellyfish, dandelions, lichens and lizards.

2. (countable) The flower head or fruiting head of the dandelion plant.
3. (uncountable) A yellow colour, like that of the flower.

   dandelion:  

• Taraxacum albidum, a white-flowering Japanese dandelion.
• Taraxacum californicum, the endangered California dandelion.
• Taraxacum japonicum, Japanese dandelion. No ring of smallish, downward-turned leaves under the flowerhead.
• Taraxacum kok-saghyz, Russian dandelion, which produces rubber.
• Taraxacum laevigatum, red-seeded dandelion; achenes reddish brown and leaves deeply cut throughout length. Inner bracts' tips are hooded.
  • Taraxacum erythrospermum, often considered a variety of Taraxacum laevigatum.
• Taraxacum officinale (syn. Taraxacum officinale subsp. vulgare), common dandelion. Found in many forms.

dandelion (not comparable)

1. Of a yellow colour, like that of the flower.

• clock
• goatsbeard
• hawk's beard
• kok-saghyz
• oxtongue
• pissabed
• Taraxacum
• Appendix:Colors

• daldinone