GENTIAN

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does gentian mean? 

• GENTIAN (noun)
  The noun GENTIAN has 1 sense:

1. any of various plants of the family Gentianaceae especially the genera Gentiana and Gentianella and Gentianopsis

  Familiarity information: GENTIAN used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• GENTIAN (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Any of various plants of the family Gentianaceae especially the genera Gentiana and Gentianella and Gentianopsis

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Hypernyms ("gentian" is a kind of...):

flower (a plant cultivated for its blooms or blossoms)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "gentian"):

Gentiana acaulis; gentianella (low-growing alpine plant cultivated for its dark glossy green leaves in basal rosettes and showy solitary bell-shaped blue flowers)

blind gentian; bottle gentian; closed gentian; Gentiana andrewsii (gentian of eastern North America having tubular blue or white flowers that open little if at all)

explorer's gentian; Gentiana calycosa (tufted sometimes sprawling perennial with blue flowers spotted with green; western North America)

blind gentian; closed gentian; Gentiana clausa (similar to Gentiana andrewsii but with larger flowers)

Gentiana lutea; great yellow gentian (robust European perennial having clusters of yellow flowers)

calathian violet; Gentiana pneumonanthe; marsh gentian (perennial Eurasian gentian with sky-blue funnel-shaped flowers of damp open heaths)

Gentiana saponaria; soapwort gentian (erect perennial of wet woodlands of North America having leaves and flower buds resembling those of soapwort)

Gentiana villosa; striped gentian (a perennial marsh gentian of eastern North America)

ague weed; agueweed; five-flowered gentian; Gentiana quinquefolia; Gentianella quinquefolia; stiff gentian (gentian of eastern North America having clusters of bristly blue flowers)

felwort; gentianella amarella (gentian of Europe and China having creamy white flowers with fringed corollas)

fringed gentian (any of various herbs of the genus Gentianopsis having the margins of the corolla lobes fringed; sometimes included in genus Gentiana)

spurred gentian (any of various plants of the genus Halenia having flowers with spurred lobes)

Holonyms ("gentian" is a member of...):

family Gentianaceae; gentian family; Gentianaceae (chiefly herbaceous plants with showy flowers; some are cultivated as ornamentals)

 Context examples 

Gentian violet (GV) dissociates into positive (GV+) and negative ions (Cl-) that penetrate both gram-positive and gram-negative bacterial cells.

(Gentian Violet, NCI Thesaurus)