Crossword clues for plumbago
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Graphite \Graph"ite\, n. [Gr. gra`fein to write: cf. F. graphite. See Graphic.] (Min.) Native carbon in hexagonal crystals, also foliated or granular massive, of black color and metallic luster, and so soft as to leave a trace on paper. It is used for pencils (improperly called lead pencils), for crucibles, and as a lubricator, etc. Often called plumbago or black lead.
Graphite battery (Elec.), a voltaic battery consisting of zinc and carbon in sulphuric acid, or other exciting liquid.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"graphite," 1784, from Latin plumbago "a type of lead ore, black lead," from plumbum "lead" (see plumb (n.)); it renders Greek molybdaina, which was used of yellow lead oxide and also of a type of plant (leadwort). Attested in English in the yellow oxide sense from 1610s; as a type of plant from 1747. Related: Plumbaginous.
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context mineralogy English) graphite 2 (context botany English) leadwort
WordNet
n. used as a lubricant and as a moderator in nuclear reactors [syn: graphite, black lead]
any plumbaginaceous plant of the genus Plumbago
Wikipedia
Plumbago may refer to:
Plumbago is a genus of 10-20 species of flowering plants in the family Plumbaginaceae, native to warm temperate to tropical regions of the world. Common names include plumbago and leadwort (names which are also shared by the genus Ceratostigma). The generic name, derived from the Latin words plumbum (" lead") and agere ("to resemble"), was first used by Pliny the Elder (23-79) for a plant known as μολυβδαινα (molybdaina) to Pedanius Dioscorides (ca. 40-90). This may have referred to its lead-blue flower colour, the ability of the sap to create lead-colored stains on skin, or Pliny's belief that the plant was a cure for lead poisoning.
The species include herbaceous plants and shrubs growing to tall. The leaves are spirally arranged, simple, entire, long, with a tapered base and often with a hairy margin. The flowers are white, blue, purple, red, or pink, with a tubular corolla with five petal-like lobes; they are produced in racemes.
The flower calyx has glandular trichomes (hairs), which secrete a sticky mucilage that is capable of trapping and killing insects; it is unclear what the purpose of these trichomes is; protection from pollination by way of "crawlers" ( ants and other insects that typically do not transfer pollen between individual plants), or possible protocarnivory.
Mature plumbago leaves often have a whitish residue on their undersides, a feature that can confuse gardeners. While this white material resembles a powdery mildew disease or a chemical spray deposit, it is actually a natural exudate from “chalk” glands that are found on the plumbago species.
Plumbago is a genus of skippers in the family Hesperiidae.
Usage examples of "plumbago".
I shake ten capsules out, and a hundred hands toss a thousand tranquilizers onto the red carpet tongues of those Plumbago mouths.
She makes a kiss in the rearview mirror and pokes the lipstick around the edge of her big Plumbago mouth, trembling so much that her one big hand has to hold her lipstick hand steady.
Brandy puts a big Plumbago kiss on the little square for the stamp and lets the wind lift the card and sail it off toward the towers of downtown Seattle.
The skin is a lot of pink around a Plumbago mouth, and the eyes are too aubergine.
My eyes look right into the dark interior of her Plumbago mouth, dark wet going inside to her works and organs and everything behind the scenes.
Brandy spreads pot gloss across her top lip and then her bottom lip, blots her lips on a tissue, and drops the big Plumbago kiss into the snail shell toilet.
It was this period which witnessed the discovery of plumbago, a mineral which was soon worked up into an entirely new material for writing and drawing,-- the lead pencil.
And rose-geraniums, with that tender pink That cloud-banks borrow from the setting sun, Have covered part of this old wall, entwined With fair plumbago, blue as evening heavens behind.
As the chair whistled along a flowery path with royal palms and plumbago everywhere, the pretty blond girl was starting to smile again.
Something was moving in the thick shrubbery at the foot of the lawn, dark, indistinct, bigger than a dog, slipping through the flower-laden plumbago clumps with serpentine grace.
Their perches and sway-bars were made from poles of the lightest pine, while the axle-trees were greased with plumbago and the wheels mounted on springs and rimmed with iron.
I made potassium cyanide by adding sal ammoniac to a mixture of plumbago and potash.
We lay down our bouquets-little flowers picked here and there from walls, through iron fences like our own-the wild bridal wreath, the pretty blue plumbago, the little gold and brown lantana.
The pastoral English setting had become very French, with bougainvillea and plumbago and vines climbing against a mellow brick wall.
Palm trees surrounded by blue plumbago, pink and white oleander, purple and red bougainvillea, Easter lilies, yellow, peach, red, pink, and white hibiscus, and cedar trees all perfumed the air as he rode.