snapdragon
2 synonyms for snapdragon, grouped by meaning and by how common each one is.
Noun — A garden plant of the genus Antirrhinum, prized for its brightly coloured red, yellow or white blooms.
Synonyms
Rare, literary or technical
Precise, but they will stand out — check the sense before using one.
Synonyms by Meaning
1. noun
A garden plant of the genus Antirrhinum, prized for its brightly coloured red, yellow or white blooms.
“Rows of snapdragons lined the edge of the flower bed.”
2. noun
An old parlour game in which players snatch raisins from a dish of burning brandy and eat them.
“The family played snapdragon by the fireside every Christmas Eve.”
How to use snapdragon
The word patterns that sound natural to a native speaker.
In modern everyday use it almost always refers to the flower, since the game sense is now old-fashioned.
Etymology
Snapdragon joins the words snap and dragon, because children imagined the flower as a small dragon whose mouth snaps open when its sides are pinched. Similar animal-inspired names for the same flower exist in other languages, comparing it to a lion's mouth. An earlier English name for the plant literally meant dog's he...
Full origin of snapdragon →