Lilac
nounA garden shrub with fragrant clusters of pale purple or white flowers, or the flower itself.
How to spell lilac
5 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce lilac
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does lilac mean?
- nounA garden shrub with fragrant clusters of pale purple or white flowers, or the flower itself.
- adjectiveOf a pale purple colour tinged with pink.
Lilac in a sentence
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noun
The old lilac by the fence blooms every May.
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adjective
She painted the spare bedroom a soft lilac shade.
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noun
She cut a stem of lilac and put it in a vase on the kitchen table.
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adjective
He chose a lilac tie to match the wedding theme.
Where does lilac come from?
Language of origin: Other
The word arrived in English in the early 1600s from the French lilas, which itself came through Spanish from the Arabic lilak. The Arabic form was borrowed from the Persian nilak, meaning 'bluish', a word built on nil, meaning 'blue' or 'indigo'. That Persian colour word traces all the way back to the Sanskrit nila, meaning 'dark blue', the same root that lies behind the dye name 'anil' and ultimately the word 'aniline'. The plant was named for the colour of its blossoms rather than the other way around, so the flower carries an ancient colour term inside it. Because the second syllable is an unstressed schwa, writers sometimes hesitate over the final vowel, but remembering the 'lak' of the Persian original keeps the ending as -lac.
How the word is built
- lilac (single root from Persian nilak: bluish), no prefix or suffix
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