poinsettia
/ˌpɔɪnˈsɛ.t(i)ə/noun
poinsettia is spelled P-O-I-N-S-E-T-T-I-A. The wrong spelling people search most is poinsetta: about 970 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 10 of all searches for the word. Poinsettia is a noun meaning “A plant, Euphorbia pulcherrima, with rather small and insignificant flowers surrounded by large bright red…”. The plural of poinsettia is poinsettias.
How many letters and syllables are in poinsettia?
| Letters | 10: P-O-I-N-S-E-T-T-I-A |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 4 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 8 million words; the 82,325th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 2; the most searched, poinsetta, about 970 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Rhymes with |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How do you spell poinsettia?
Poinsettia is spelled P-O-I-N-S-E-T-T-I-A. 2 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 10 of the searches for poinsettia in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is poinsettia?
Poinsettia appears about once in every 8 million words in written English, the 82,325th 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).
How do you pronounce poinsettia?
- UK /ˌpɔɪnˈsɛ.tɪə/
- US /ˌpɔɪnˈsɛ.t(i)ə/
Poinsettia 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). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-poinsettia.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with poinsettia?
6 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as poinsettia from its last stressed vowel (/ɛtə/):
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of poinsettia
- poinsettias plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does poinsettia mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A plant, Euphorbia pulcherrima, with rather small and insignificant flowers surrounded by large bright red leaves; native to Mexico and Central America and widely cultivated as a garden plant; widely used in Christmas floral displays.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Poinsettia in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense plant:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| German | Weihnachtsstern |
| Portuguese | bico-de-papagaio, poinsétia |
| Spanish | flor de Pascua, corona del Inca, estrella federal, flor de Nochebuena, papagayo, pastora f. sombrilla japonesa |
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 poinsettia come from?
After the obsolete genus name Poinsettia, named after Joel Roberts Poinsett (19th-century US minister to Mexico); equivalent to Poinsett + -ia.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).