Croton
name, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Any of various plants, of the genus Croton, that yield croton oil.
- 2 tropical Asiatic shrub; source of croton oil wordnet
- 3 A tropical evergreen shrub (Codiaeum variegatum), having glossy foliage, cultivated as a houseplant.
"The croton bushes, by day hideous things like jaundiced laurels, were changed by the moon into jagged black and white designs like fantastic wood-cuts."
- 4 grown in many varieties for their brightly colored foliage; widely cultivated as a houseplant wordnet
- 1 A river in southern New York.
- 2 Crotone
- 3 Ellipsis of Croton-on-Hudson: a village in southern New York, United States, located along the Croton and Hudson rivers. abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis
- 4 The water supply of New York City. dated
"The pumps now draw water from this tank, instead of from the "Croton main" as formerly."
Example
More examples"The croton bushes, by day hideous things like jaundiced laurels, were changed by the moon into jagged black and white designs like fantastic wood-cuts."
Etymology
From New Latin crotōn, from Ancient Greek κροτών (krotṓn, “tick”), from the size and shape of the seed.
The river takes its name from the (Mohegan-Pequot) name of the chief of the group which lived along it. (It was formerly named after the group itself, the Kitchawan subdivision of the Mohegan.) The river feeds the Croton Reservoir in Croton-on-Hudson, which feeds the Croton Aqueduct, which supplies water to New York City, hence the metonymic sense. Early spellings of the name include Scroton.
Borrowed from Latin Crotōn. Doublet of Crotone.
Related phrases
More for "croton"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.