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Periwinkle
Definitions
- 1 Of pale bluish purple colour.
- 1 Any of several evergreen plants of the genus Vinca with blue or white flowers.
"The Periwinkle is a great binder, staying bleeding both at mouth and nose if some of the leaves be chewed."
- 2 A mollusk of family Littorinidae.
"He was working a pin into a periwinkle shell, turning it to extract the toothsome morsel of meat."
- 3 edible marine gastropod wordnet
- 4 Similar plants of genus Catharanthus.
- 5 small edible marine snail; steamed in wine or baked wordnet
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- 6 A color with bluish and purplish hues, somewhat light.
"And although we’ve certainly seen a variety of blue shades — from periwinkle to cobalt and even Dean Cain’s indigo-washed costume from the 1990’s TV show “Lois & Clark” — Superman’s uniform is still instantly recognizable across generations. In fact, there is only one film — Zack Snyder’s 2013 “Man of Steel” — in which Superman does not wear his iconic red belted trunks."
- 7 commonly cultivated Old World woody herb having large pinkish to red flowers wordnet
- 8 chiefly trailing poisonous plants with blue flowers wordnet
Etymology
Diminutive of Middle English perwinke, from Old English perfince, perwince (compare Middle High German berwinke), from Latin pervinca (compare French pervenche, Italian pervinca).
Diminutive of Middle English perwinke, from Old English perfince, perwince (compare Middle High German berwinke), from Latin pervinca (compare French pervenche, Italian pervinca).
From Middle English [Term?], alteration of *pinewinkle (compare English dialectal pennywinkle), from Old English pīnewincle, compound of Latin pīna (“kind of mussel”), itself from Ancient Greek πίνη (pínē), variant of πίννα (pínna, “mussel”)) and Old English wincel (“corner”) (compare dialectal Danish vinkel (“snail shell”)). More at winch and wink.
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