rafflesia
raf·fles·ia/ɹəˈfliː.ʒə/noun
rafflesia is a noun meaning “Any of several large parasitic plants, of the genus Rafflesia, from South East Asia, that have no roots, stems or leaves; Rafflesia arnoldii has the…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled R-A-F-F-L-E-S-I-A and has 3 syllables (raf·fles·ia), and it appears about once in every 41 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of rafflesia is rafflesias.
What does rafflesia mean?
noun
- 1
Any of several large parasitic plants, of the genus Rafflesia, from South East Asia, that have no roots, stems or leaves; Rafflesia arnoldii has the largest known flower with a diameter of over a yard.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce rafflesia?
- UK /ɹəˈfliː.ʒə/
- UK /ɹəˈfliː.ʒɪ.ə/
- UK /ɹəˈfliː.zɪ.ə/
Rafflesia has 3 syllables, split raf·fles·ia in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of rafflesia
- rafflesias plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is rafflesia?
Rafflesia appears about once in every 41 million words in written English, the 196,618th 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).
Rafflesia in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense plant of the genus Rafflesia:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| German | Rafflesien |
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 rafflesia come from?
Learned borrowing from taxonomic name Rafflesia.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).