Definition of "amaryllis" []

• Any of several chiefly tropical American bulbous plants of the genus Hippeastrum grown as ornamentals for their large, showy, funnel-shaped, variously colored flowers that are grouped in umbels. (noun)
• See belladonna lily. (noun)
• Any of several similar or related plants. (noun)
• Used in classical pastoral poetry as a conventional name for a shepherdess. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "With my office covered in amaryllis and tulips, I've been grinning all day long!"
• "And some of the oxalis tribe yield great returns; and cyclamens are exquisite and expensive; and the amaryllis is doubly ditto, ditto; and ixias, and many more are to be grown, if you have room, money, or opportunity."
• "Of all flowering bulbs, the amaryllis is the easiest to force a flower."