tulip

/ˈtuləp/

/ˈtulɪp/

Other forms: tulips

A tulip is a flower that grows from a bulb and blooms in the spring. You might give your grandmother a big bouquet of colorful tulips on her birthday.

The first tulips were cultivated in 10th-century Persia, and the word tulip stems from the Persian dulband, "turban," which tulips resemble. In the Netherlands during the 17th century, tulips became so wildly popular that the price of the bulbs grew to be approximately ten times the annual salary of a skilled artisan. This period is known as "tulip mania." During this same time, a tulip virus caused variegated, or striped, patterns to appear for the first time on tulip petals.

Definitions of tulip

1. noun

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

   Tulipa armena, Tulipa suaveolens, dwarf tulip

   small early blooming tulip

   Tulipa clusiana, candlestick tulip, lady tulip

   Eurasian tulip with small flowers blotched at the base

   Tulipa gesneriana

   tall late blooming tulip

   cottage tulip

   any of several long-stemmed tulips that flower in May; have egg-shaped variously colored flowers

   Darwin tulip

   any of several very tall, late blooming tulips bearing large squarish flowers on sturdy stems

   type of:

   liliaceous plant

   plant growing from a bulb or corm or rhizome or tuber