protea
noun
protea is a noun meaning “Any of many South African flowering plants, of the genus Protea, having colourful cone-shaped flower heads” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled P-R-O-T-E-A, and it appears about once in every 12 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of protea is proteas.
What does protea mean?
noun
- 1
Any of many South African flowering plants, of the genus Protea, having colourful cone-shaped flower heads.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of protea
- proteas plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is protea?
Protea 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).
Where does protea come from?
Named after Proteus, the Greek warden of sea-beasts, renowned for his ability to change shape.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).