gardenia
gar·de·nia/ɡɑɹˈdinjə/noun
gardenia is a noun meaning “Any of various tropical evergreen small trees or shrubs, of the genus Gardenia, having glossy leaves and white flowers” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled G-A-R-D-E-N-I-A and has 3 syllables (gar·de·nia), and it appears about once in every 4 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of gardenia is gardenias.
What does gardenia mean?
noun
- 1
Any of various tropical evergreen small trees or shrubs, of the genus Gardenia, having glossy leaves and white flowers.
- 2
The flower of these plants.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce gardenia?
- US /ɡɑɹˈdinjə/
- UK /ɡɑːˈdiːnjə/
Gardenia has 3 syllables, split gar·de·nia in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-gardenia.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of gardenia
- gardenias plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is gardenia?
Gardenia appears about once in every 4 million words in written English, the 57,423rd 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).
Gardenia in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense tree or shrub of the genus Gardenia:
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 gardenia come from?
Borrowed from translingual Gardenia, named after Scottish naturalist Dr. Alexander Garden.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).