Lupin

//ˈluːpɪn// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Any member of the genus Lupinus in the family Fabaceae.

    "Amongst the herbs to be administered when the charm was sung over him were a yew-berry, lupin, helenium, marsh mallow, dock, elder, wormwood and strawberry leaves."

  2. 2
    any plant of the genus Lupinus; bearing erect spikes of usually purplish-blue flowers wordnet
  3. 3
    A lupin bean, a yellow legume seed of a Lupinus plant (usually Lupinus luteus), used as feed for sheep and cattle and commonly eaten in the Mediterranean area and in Latin America although toxic if prepared improperly.

    "Lupins contain less than 3% starch (Evans, 1994), the main fermentable carbohydrate involved in rumen acidosis when cereal grains are fed to ruminants. For this reason lupins have generally been regarded as a completely safe feed for sheep and cattle, and required no gradual introduction (Rowe, 1995)."

Synonyms

All synonyms
lupinelupinelupini

Example

More examples

""Who's that sleeping?" "Professor Lupin." "How does she know everything?" "It's all written on his luggage" "Is he really sleeping?" "Seems so. Why?""

Etymology

From Middle English lupyne, lupine, from Old French lupin, from Latin lupīnus (“pertaining to the wolf”), because of the wolf-like “fang” within the blossom. It has also been linked to an assumed depletion of nutrients in the soil.

Related phrases

tree lupin

More for "lupin"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

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