manita
/məˈniːtə/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.11 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "[…] The manita tree,* so named from the singular formation of its flower, a drawing of which is placed as the frontispiece of this book, is a species of plant almost unknown in the catalogues of botanists. Manita means a little hand."
- "Tradition states, that though the Indians did not actually worship the manita tree, yet they regarded the flower with a sort of religious veneration."
- "The curious manita, or ‘hand tree,’ near the city of Mexico, is another of these curiosities."
- "[…] with high walls on every side but open at the top and certainly not exceeding 80 feet square, and this is the botanic garden of the palace of Mexico; a few shrubs and plants and the celebrated manita tree, are all that it contains."
- "Close by was a plant of the manita, a flower which the Aztecs used to worship ; it is in the form of a hand, with four fingers and a thumb : this they imagined to be the hand of one of their most powerful deities, and adored it ; its colour is a brilliant scarlet."
- "Here one finds among remedies for every organ and ailment, manita, whose red flower, shaped like thumb and four fingers gives its name “the little hand.”"
Etymology
Borrowed from Spanish manita (“little hand”), feminine-form diminutive of mano (“hand”), because the small red flowers of the tree resemble five-fingered human hands.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: manita