Cactus
['kæktəs]
Definition
(noun.) any succulent plant of the family Cactaceae native chiefly to arid regions of the New World and usually having spines.
Typist: Phil--From WordNet
Definition
(n.) Any plant of the order Cactacae, as the prickly pear and the night-blooming cereus. See Cereus. They usually have leafless stems and branches, often beset with clustered thorns, and are mostly natives of the warmer parts of America.
Checker: Mattie
Definition
n. an American plant generally with prickles instead of leaves.—adj. Cactā′ceous pertaining to or like the cactus.
Editor: Nita
Examples
- Mrs. Fisher paused and looked reflectively at the deep shimmer of sea between the cactus-flowers. Edith Wharton. The House of Mirth.
- Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country. Mark Twain. The Innocents Abroad.
- That was the odor of the cactus flowers, mimosa and the sea-grape shrubs. Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom The Bell Tolls.
- Some spineless cactus in fruit are also shown. Various. The Wonder Book of Knowledge.
- The terrestrial species is confined to the centra l part of the group; it is smaller than the aquatic species, and feeds on cactus, leaves of trees, and berries. Walter Libby. An Introduction to the History of Science.
- My lesson, I perceived, must to-night be very shortbut the orange-trees, the cacti, the camelias were all served now. Charlotte Bronte. Villette.
- The silvered mountains in the distance, the almost stationary moon hanging in the sky, the cacti-studded valley below me were not of Mars. Edgar Rice Burroughs. A Princess of Mars.
Checked by Dolores