See Also: Lotus(medicine)
Lotus Air(tourism)
lotus(dictionary)
lotus(encyclopedia)
lotus(dictionary)
White Lotus(encyclopedia)
Lotus Sutra(encyclopedia)
lotus position(dictionary)
Lotus Air flights(tourism)
lotus-eater(dictionary)

lotus (iou)



lotus noun. Also (esp. in sense 2) lotos. L15.
[Latin from Greek lotos.]
Some kind of clover or trefoil (referred to by Homer as food for horses). obsolete exc. Hist. & poet. L15.
A plant yielding a fruit represented by Homer as producing in those who ate it a state of dreamy forgetfulness and loss of all desire to return home, identified by later Greek writers with a N. African shrub (probably the jujube tree, Ziziphus lotus). M16.
A tree mentioned by classical writers, having a hard black wood (probably the nettle-tree, Celtis australis). M16.
Any of several exotic water lilies; esp. (a) Nymphaea lotus, sacred in ancient Egypt, which has white flowers and pink outer petals; (b) Nelumbo nucifera, sacred in parts of southern Asia (and treated symbolically in Hindu and Buddhist thought), which has white or pink flowers; (c) (more fully American lotus) the N. American water lily Nelumbo lutea, which has fragrant yellow flowers. L16.
b. In full lotus position. In Yoga, a cross-legged bodily position with the feet resting on the thighs, said to resemble the lotus blossom. Also called padmasana. M20.
Any of various leguminous plants of the genus Lotus; spec. bird's-foot trefoil, L. corniculatus. M18.
Comb.: lotus-bird Austral. the jacana; lotus capital, lotus-column Egyptian Architecture: shaped like a lotus, ornamented with lotuses; lotus-land the fabled land of the lotus-eaters; a land of ease and delight; lotus position: see sense 4b above.