Meanings
plural immortelles
- Any of various papery flowers, often dried and used as decoration.
[…] a big rabbit-warren of a house full of […] fragments of the day's market, garlic, stale incense, clothes thrown on the floor, petticoats hung on strings for screens, old bottles, pewter crucifixes, dried immortelles, pariah puppies, plaster images of the Virgin, and hats without crowns.
1888, Rudyard Kipling, “His Chance in Life”, in Plain Tales from the Hills, Folio Society, published 2005, page 55 - Any of various trees of the genus Erythrina.
The land between the road and the gully widened; the gully grew shallower. Beyond it Mr Biswas saw the tall immortelles and their red and yellow flowers. And then the untrodden road blazed with the flowers.
1961, V. S. Naipaul, A House for Mr Biswas, Vintage International, published 2001, Part Two, Chapter 3
Synonyms & antonyms
nounmostly widely cultivated species of everlasting flowers having usually purple flowers; southern Europe to Iran; naturalized elsewhere
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Frenchimmortelle
- Frenchimmortelle
- Englishimmortelle
Borrowed from French immortelle.
More words from French
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Ancient Greek χρυσοκόμη
- χρυσοκόμη (khrusokómē)Any of various papery flowers
Bulgarian безсмъртниче
- безсмъртниче (bezsmărtniče)Any of various papery flowers
German Immortelle
- ImmortelleAny of various papery flowers
Cite this entry
immortelle. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/immortelle
“immortelle.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/immortelle. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “immortelle,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/immortelle.
Source: immortelle on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.