| 词汇 | petunia |
| 词源 | petunia. This popular, funnel-shaped flower is botanically related to the tobacco plant, hence its name from the Portu- guese word petum, meaning “tobacco.” The Portuguese had taken the word from the Tupi-Guarani South America Indian word petyn. Petum became the French petin, which passed into English as petun, an archaic word for tobacco. Toward the end of the 19th century, the name of the genus Petunia was formed in New Latin by botanists from the French petun because it was so closely related to tobacco. It wasn’t long before the flower of the genus was being called the petunia. |
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