Martagon lily

[ mahr-tuh-guhn ]

noun

1. Turk's-cap lily.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Martagon lily¹

First recorded in 1400–50; Middle English mortagon, from Medieval Latin martagon, from Turkish martağan “turban” + lily ( def )

Example Sentences

An amazing Martagon lily entertains with a jester’s bonnet of upturned white petals that reveal hot coral-tipped pistils, while a mysterious jet black butterfly alights upon a delicate pale mauve delphinium.

From New York Times

We were anxious to find the noble Martagon lily, and hunted in many glades and forest borders for it.

From Project Gutenberg

Thenceforward, until the episodical lines on the Martagon lily, the child and her creator are one.

From Project Gutenberg

The martagon lily flourished in the Aldington garden, and when they were blooming the overpowering scent was particularly attractive to moths of the Plusia genus, including the Burnished Brass, the Golden Y, and the Beautiful Golden Y, all exhibiting very distinctive markings of burnished gold; and other Noctuæ in great variety.

From Project Gutenberg

Nowhere in literature has the virtue of mere innocent gladness been more charmingly imagined than in her morning outbreak of expectancy, half animal glee, half spiritual joy; the "whole sunrise, not to be suppressed" is a limitless splendour, but the reflected beam cast up from the splash of her ewer and dancing on her poor ceiling is the same in kind; in the shrub-house up the hill-side are great exotic blooms, but has not Pippa her one martagon lily, over which she queens it?

From Project Gutenberg