potentilla
/ˌpoʊ.tɛnˈtɪ.lə/noun
potentilla is a noun meaning “Any of many shrubs and herbs of the genus Potentilla; the cinquefoils” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled P-O-T-E-N-T-I-L-L-A and has 4 syllables, and it appears about once in every 23 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of potentilla is potentillas.
What does potentilla mean?
noun
- 1
Any of many shrubs and herbs of the genus Potentilla; the cinquefoils.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce potentilla?
- US /ˌpoʊ.tɛnˈtɪ.lə/
- /ˌpoʊ.tɛnˈti.ə/
Potentilla has 4 syllables (counted from the pronunciation).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-potentilla.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of potentilla
- potentillas plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is potentilla?
Potentilla 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).
Potentilla in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense any of many shrubs and herbs of the genus Potentilla:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | potentille |
| German | Fingerkraut |
| Portuguese | potentilha |
| Spanish | potentilla |
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 potentilla come from?
Borrowed from translingual Potentilla, from Latin potentilla, from potēns (“strong”) + -illa (dimintuive suffix).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).