daffodil

IPA/ˈdæfədɪl/
KK[dˈæfədˌɪl]IPA/ˈdæfədɪl/

daffodil — noun

  • daffodilsingular
  • daffodilsplural

1. a tall garden plant that blooms in early spring, with bright yellow flowers shap

1.nounB1
Definition

a tall garden plant that blooms in early spring, with bright yellow flowers shaped like a trumpet rising from a single long green stem; it grows from a bulb planted under the soil.

Example

Kemi planted twenty daffodil bulbs along the front fence last October.

collocation: plant + daffodil bulbs

The first daffodils opened in the school garden the week after Easter break.

typical seasonal context: daffodils + spring

Common collocations
  • plant daffodils
  • a bunch of daffodils
  • yellow daffodils
  • wild daffodils
Synonyms
  • narcissus

    the botanical genus name; covers daffodils and related yellow or white spring flowers.

  • jonquil

    a smaller, strongly scented kind of daffodil, often with several flowers per stem.

Usage Note

Almost always countable; the bulb, the plant, and the cut flower can all be called a daffodil. Often used in the plural when describing fields, gardens, or bouquets.

Common Mistakes

I bought a daffodils.
I bought some daffodils.
use a plural determiner with the plural noun.
The tree is full of daffodils.
The lawn is covered with daffodils.
daffodils grow from bulbs in the ground, not on trees.

Word family

  • narcissus
    nounC1

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

All four are spring bulb flowers, but they differ in scope and shape. Daffodil is the everyday English name for the tall, trumpet-shaped yellow flower most people picture for early spring. Narcissus is the botanical genus that includes all daffodils plus white, cream, and small-cupped relatives — so every daffodil is a narcissus, but not every narcissus is called a daffodil. Jonquil is a specific, smaller subgroup with several scented flowers per stem; people sometimes call any daffodil a jonquil, but botanists keep the term narrow. Tulip is unrelated — it has a single cup-shaped flower on a smooth stem and comes in many colours. So Kemi planting daffodil bulbs (sense 1) could also be called planting narcissus bulbs in a plant shop, but never tulip bulbs.

daffodil ↗narcissusjonquiltulip ↗

Common collocations

Nouns

  • daffodil bulb
  • daffodil field
  • daffodil season

Phrases

  • a bunch of daffodils
  • a field of daffodils
  • wild daffodils

Prepositions

Etymology

GreekLatinMiddle DutchMiddle EnglishEnglish

Daffodil comes from a Middle English form of the Latin word asphodelus, which described a related lily-like flower. The unexpected 'd-' at the start probably comes from the Dutch article 'de' (the) being mistakenly stuck onto the name when bulbs were shipped from the Netherlands to England in the late 1500s, giving 'de affodil' that fused into one word.

First known use

1548

1548, in the meaning defined above