nasturtium

Wikispecies

• nasturtian, nasturtion (archaic)

From Middle English nasturcium, from Old English nasturcium (“watercress”), from Latin nasturtium.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /nasˈtɜːʃəm/, /nəsˈtɜːʃəm/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /næsˈtɝʃəm/, /nəsˈtɝʃəm/

nasturtium (plural nasturtiums or nasturtia)

1. The popular name of any of the plants in the Tropaeolum genus of flowering plants native to south and central America.
   • 1915, Robert W. Chambers, “Un Peu d'Amour”, in Police!!!‎^[1]:

     To me a nasturtium by the river brink is more than a simple flower. It is a broader, grander, more magnificent, more stupendous symbol. It may mean anything, everything—such as sunsets and conflagrations and Götterdämmerungs!

   • 1922, Katherine Mansfield [pseudonym; Kathleen Mansfield Murry], “At the Bay”, in The Garden Party, London: Constable & Company, page 1:

     Drenched were the cold fuchsias, round pearls of dew lay on the flat nasturtium leaves.

2. A plant in this genus, garden nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus).

   Synonyms: monks cress, Indian cress

3. Any of the plants in the genus Nasturtium that includes watercress.

• “nasturtium, n.”, in OED Online  ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, June 2003.

From nāris (“nose”) +‎ torquere (“to twist”). (Can this⁽⁺⁾ etymology be sourced?)

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /naːsˈtur.ti.um/, [näːs̠ˈt̪ʊrt̪iʊ̃ˑ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /nasˈtur.t͡si.um/, [näsˈt̪urt̪͡s̪ium]

nāsturtium n (genitive nāsturtiī or nāsturtī); second declension

1. cress

Second-declension noun (neuter).

¹Found in older Latin (until the Augustan Age).

• “nasturtium”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press