citronella
noun
citronella is a noun meaning “A tropical Asian grass, Cymbopogon nardus, that has citrus-scented leaves” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled C-I-T-R-O-N-E-L-L-A and has 4 syllables, and it appears about once in every 12 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of citronella is citronellas.
What does citronella mean?
noun
- 1
A tropical Asian grass, Cymbopogon nardus, that has citrus-scented leaves.
- 2
An essential oil obtained from this plant, often used as an insect repellent.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce citronella?
Citronella has 4 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of citronella
- citronellas plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is citronella?
Citronella appears about once in every 12 million words in written English, the 103,949th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Citronella in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense grass:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | citronnelle |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does citronella come from?
Borrowed from French citronnelle.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).