Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of several bulbous plants of the genus Tulipa of the lily family, native chiefly to Asia and widely cultivated for their showy, variously colored, cup-shaped flowers.
  • noun The flower of any of these plants.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A plant of the genus Tulipa, of which several species are well-known garden bulbs with highly colored bell-shaped flowers, blooming in spring.
  • noun In ordnance, a bell-shaped outward swell of the muzzle of a gun, as a rule abandoned in modern ordnance.
  • noun A liliaceous plant, Bæometra columellaris (Tulipa Breyniana) of the Cape of Good Hope.
  • noun In California, same as butterfly-tulip: see above.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Bot.) Any plant of the liliaceous genus Tulipa. Many varieties are cultivated for their beautiful, often variegated flowers.
  • noun A West Indian malvaceous tree (Paritium tiliaceum syn. Hibiscus tiliaceum).

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A type of flowering plant, genus Tulipa.
  • noun The flower of this plant.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun any of numerous perennial bulbous herbs having linear or broadly lanceolate leaves and usually a single showy flower

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French tulipe, alteration of tulipan, from Ottoman Turkish tülbend, muslin, gauze, turban (from the shape of the opened flower), from Persian dulband, turban.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Modern Latin tulipa, from Turkish tülbent ("fine muslin, turban"), from Persian دلبند (dolband), also the root of turban; cognate with Mazandarani تولیپ ("tulip").

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Examples

Comments

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  • The tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals;

    They are opening like the mouth of a great African cat.

    from "Tulips," Sylvia Plath

    March 26, 2008