Candelilla

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A type of flowering succulent plant, native to Texas and northern Mexico, of species Euphorbia antisyphilitica.

    "The ranch-owners were much surprised when they were informed that the candelilla plant, known to science as Euphorbia cerifera, instead of being useless, was of considerable value, because experiments had proved that it contained crude wax, for which there is much demand."

  2. 2
    wax-coated shrub of northern Mexico and southwestern United States wordnet
  3. 3
    wax-coated Mexican shrub related to Euphorbia antisyphilitica wordnet

Example

More examples

"The ranch-owners were much surprised when they were informed that the candelilla plant, known to science as Euphorbia cerifera, instead of being useless, was of considerable value, because experiments had proved that it contained crude wax, for which there is much demand."

Etymology

From Spanish candelilla.

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.