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crown of thorns

noun

Simple meaning

Somewhat climbing bushy spurge of Madagascar having long woody spiny stems with few leaves and flowers with scarlet bracts.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

krownuhvthawrnz

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈkɹaʊˈnʌvˈθɔɹnz

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. Somewhat climbing bushy spurge of Madagascar having long woody spiny stems with few leaves and flowers with scarlet bracts

  2. A spiny spurge, Euphorbia milii, native to Madagascar.

  3. Christianity

    A mock crown made of thorn branches that Roman soldiers placed on Jesus before the Crucifixion

  4. christianity

    The crown made of a thorny plant that Christ was forced to wear before his Crucifixion, in mocking reference to his alleged status as 'king of the Jews', or a representation of this.

  5. A spiny Mediterranean tree, Ziziphus spina-christi.

  6. The plant Koeberlinia spinosa.

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Somewhat climbing bushy spurge of Madagascar having long woody spiny stems with few leaves and flowers with scarlet bracts

Used this way, crown of thorns is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It stays understated rather than dramatic. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Mild
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.