labellum
/ləˈbɛl.əm/noun
labellum is a noun meaning “The lower central petal of a flower (especially an orchid), usually developed to be showy and attract pollinators” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled L-A-B-E-L-L-U-M and has 3 syllables, and it appears about once in every 23 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of labellum is labella or labellums.
What does labellum mean?
noun
- 1
The lower central petal of a flower (especially an orchid), usually developed to be showy and attract pollinators.
- 2
Part of the mouth of an insect, especially the sucking mouthparts of a fly.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce labellum?
- US /ləˈbɛl.əm/
Labellum has 3 syllables (counted from the pronunciation).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-labellum.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of labellum
- labella plural
- labellums plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is labellum?
Labellum appears about once in every 23 million words in written English, the 145,125th 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).
Labellum in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense Translations:
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 labellum come from?
From Latin labellum (“small lip”), diminutive of labrum (“lip”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).