acanthus

From Latin acanthus, from Ancient Greek ἄκανθος (ákanthos), from ἀκή (akḗ, “thorn”) + ἄνθος (ánthos, “flower”).^[1][2]

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /əˈkæn.θəs/

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• (General American) IPA^(key): /əˈkæn.θəs/
• Rhymes: -ænθəs

acanthus (plural acanthuses or acanthi)

1. A member of the genus Acanthus of herbaceous prickly plants with toothed leaves, (family Acanthaceae, order Lamiales (formerly Scrophulariales)) found in the south of Europe, Asia Minor, and India. [from mid 16th century]^[2]

   Synonyms: bear's breech, bear's breeches, (rare) bear's-breech

   • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC:

     The picture before which they paused represented one of those ruined fountains so common to Italy. Francesca gazed upon it as if it had been an old friend: many a time, beside such a one, with its curved and broken marble, had she wreathed the acanthus that hung around it, the green and trailing foliage so profuse in the South, into shapes even more fanciful than those which once suggested the Corinthian capital.

2. (architecture) An ornament resembling the foliage or leaves of Acanthus spinosus, used in the capitals of the Corinthian and composite orders. [from mid 18th century]^[2]
   • 1994 March, R Ousterhout, “Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, an Annotated Bibliography and Historiography by W. Eugene Kleinbauer”, in Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, volume 53, number 1:

     It is difficult to imagine that Bernard of Clairvaux was gullible enough to accept dozens of historiated windows, grisaille fields of griffins, mosaic pavements, carved acanthus capitals, inhabited vine columns, and golden altarware on the strength of the justifications offered by a single window, one tympanum, and Suger's libelli.

• acantha
• Acanthis

• “acanthus”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

From Ancient Greek ἄκανθος (ákanthos), from ἀκή (akḗ, “thorn”) + ἄνθος (ánthos, “flower”).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /aˈkan.tʰus/, [äˈkän̪t̪ʰʊs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /aˈkan.tus/, [äˈkän̪t̪us]

acanthus m (genitive acanthī); second declension

1. A plant known as bear's-foot (Helleborus foetidus).
2. A thorny evergreen tree.

Second-declension noun.

• “acanthus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “acanthus”, in The Perseus Project (1999) Perseus Encyclopedia‎^[1]
• “acanthus”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “acanthus”, in William Smith, editor (1848), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London: John Murray
• “acanthus”, in William Smith, editor (1854, 1857), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, volume 1 & 2, London: Walton and Maberly