gėlė

See also: gėlę, gele, Gele, gelé, gèle, gelê, and gėle

Lithuanian

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gėlė

Gėlės

Etymology

Of uncertain origin. Perhaps from a lengthened vowel grade of the same root as gel̃tas (“yellow”),^[1] but this is semantically dubious due to the diversity of colors of flowers, as well as the exact derivational morphology being unclear.^[2] That said, the color yellow tends to evoke connotations of shining and blooming in various languages, as Buck notes,^[3] so the semantic connection is not too weak.

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): [ɡʲeːˈlʲeː]

Noun

gėlė̃ f (plural gė̃lės) stress pattern 4

flower (a plant that bears flowers)
Synonym: žolynas

Usage notes

gėlė and the less common žolynas (“herbaceous plant; plant with flowers”) refer to an entire plant, while žiedas refers to just the part (the flower itself).

Declension

Declension of gėlė̃

	singular (vienaskaita)	plural (daugiskaita)
nominative (vardininkas)	gėlė̃	gė̃lės
genitive (kilmininkas)	gėlė̃s	gėlių̃
dative (naudininkas)	gė̃lei	gėlė́ms
accusative (galininkas)	gė̃lę	gėlès
instrumental (įnagininkas)	gėlè	gėlėmìs
locative (vietininkas)	gėlėjè	gėlėsè
vocative (šauksmininkas)	gė̃le	gė̃lės

References

^ Smoczyński, Wojciech (2007) “gėlė̃”, in Słownik etymologiczny je̜zyka litewskiego‎^[1] (in Polish), Vilnius: Uniwersytet Wileński, page 167
^ “gėlė̃” in Hock et al., Altlitauisches etymologisches Wörterbuch 2.0 (online, 2020–); p. 351 in ALEW 1.1 (online, 2019).
^ “gėlė”, in Lietuvių kalbos etimologinio žodyno duomenų bazė [Lithuanian etymological dictionary database], 2007–2012