lady's-finger

Questions about lady's-finger

What does lady's-finger mean?

lady's-finger means "tall coarse annual of Old World tropics widely cultivated in southern United States and West Indies for its long mucilaginous green pods used as basis for soups and stews; sometimes placed in genus Hibiscus".

How many syllables are in lady's-finger?

lady's-finger has 4 syllables and divides as la-dy's--fin-ger under the regular spelling rules. It is not in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, so that comes from how the word is written rather than from a recorded pronunciation, and no stress or phonetic transcription is claimed for it.

What is another word for lady's-finger?

Close synonyms include okra, gumbo, okra plant, Abelmoschus esculentus, Hibiscus esculentus. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is lady's-finger a common word?

lady's-finger is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.