WOW: Variegated

This post is in response to Heena Rathore P.’s Word of the Week (WOW). This weekly challenge is a great way of improving your vocabulary. If you wish to participate, simply create a post with your word and leave a link in a comment on Heena’s WOW post. This week I’ve also added a bonus gallery of pictures from the garden to finish off…

Here’s my WOW for this week:

Word
Variegated

Pronunciation
var-i-e-ga-ted  (vâr′ē-ĭ-gā′tĭd)

Part of Speech
Adjective

Related Forms
Verb: variegate
Noun: variegation
Adjective: unvariegated

Meaning
1. having discrete markings in different colours
2. including many different things: full of variety

Word Origin
1660s – from Latin variegat- ‘made varied’ (from the verb variegare, from varius ‘diverse’) + ed

Synonyms
1) chromatic, coloured, colourful, kaleidoscopic, motley, mottled, multicoloured, multihued, polychromatc, polychrome, polychromus, prismatic, rainbow, varicoloured, varied, versicolour, versicoloured

2) assorted, divers, diverse, diversified, heterogeneous, miscellaneous, mixed, motley, multifarious, multiform, sundry, varied, various

Antonyms
colourless, monotone, monochrome, monochomatic, solid, unvariegated

Use in a Sentence
1) With the vividly variegated hues of their garments the dancer were as entrancing as a flock of exotic of birds.

2) The contents of their grocery shop was always a variegated selection.

3) I’ve never before realised just how many plants and flowers in my garden can be described as variegated.

The final plant pictured in the gallery I found to be particularly interesting. It’s a single plant but the clumps of flowers are all slightly different shades – it definitely fits the word ‘variegated’!