Orchidaceous (pronounced awr-ki-dey-shuhs)
(1) In botany, of, relating to, or belonging to the
Orchidaceae, a family of flowering plants including (but not limited to) the orchids.
(2) Figuratively, characterized by ostentatiousness;
showy; extravagant; excessive in some way.
1830–1840: From the New Latin Orchidace & Orchidaceae,
the construct being orchidace + -ous. It
was English botanist John Lindley (1799–1865) who in School Botanty (1845) coined the word orchid from the New Latin Orchideæ & Orchidaceae (Linnaeus), the plant's family name, from the Latin orchis (a kind of orchid), from the
Ancient Greek orkhis (genitive orkheos) (orchid (literally “testicle”))
from the primitive Indo-European orghi-,
the standard root for “testicle” (and related to the Avestan erezi (testicles), the Armenian orjik, the Middle Irish uirgge, the Irish uirge (testicle) and the Lithuanian erzilas (stallion). The
plant so called because of the shape of its root was said so to resemble
testicles (the Greek orkhis also was
the name of a kind of olive, named also for its shape). So striking did the writers of Antiquity fine
the double roots of the plant that references appear in some texts. The Roman historian Pliny the Elder (24-79)
was (as was common at the time) also something of a naturalist and he was moved
to observe: “Mirabilis est orchis herba
sive serapis gemina radice testiculis simili.” (The orchis plant, also
known as serapis, is remarkable with its twin roots resembling testicles.) The noun plural is orchids, the field is orchidology
and the breeders, collectors and other obsessives are called orchidologists. Orchidaceous & orchidean are adjectives
and orchidacity is a noun; the noun plural is orchidacities.
Earlier in English (in the Latinesque form) was the
mid-sixteenth century orchis while in
fourteenth century Middle English it was ballockwort
(literally “testicle plant” and related to the more recent ballocks). The extraneous -d- in the modern spelling was
added in an attempt to extract the Latin stem and it is here to stay, the
history of that the construct as orch(is) (the plant) + -id(ae). The irregular suffix –idae is the plural of a
Latin transliteration of the Ancient Greek -ίδης (-ídēs), a patronymic suffix which in medieval writing was sometimes
interpreted as representing instead the plural of a Latin transliteration of
the Ancient Greek adjectival suffix -ειδής (-eidḗs) from εἶδος (eîdos) (appearance, resemblance).
It was adopted in 1811 at the suggestion of British entomologist William
Kirby (1759-1850), to simplify and make uniform the system of French zoologist
Pierre André Latreille (1762–1833) which divided insect orders into sections;
in taxonomy, it’s used to form names of subclasses of plants and families of
animals. The –ous suffix was from the Middle English -ous, from the Old French –ous & -eux, from the Latin -ōsus
(full, full of); a doublet of -ose in
an unstressed position. It was used to
form adjectives from nouns, to denote possession or presence of a quality in
any degree, commonly in abundance. In
chemistry, it has a specific technical application, used in the nomenclature to
name chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a lower oxidation
number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix –ic (as an
example, sulphuric acid (H2SO4) has more oxygen atoms per
molecule than sulphurous acid (H2SO3).
In the spirit of the figurative use (and usually of women’s
fashion), although they’re non-standard, the adjective orchidaceousness and the adverb orchidaceously
have been formed and in that vein, the only thing which would make orchidaceous
difficult to use as a noun would be forming the plural (orchidaceoux would appall the purists). Usually though, those commenting on what
appears on the catwalks & red carpets seem content with the comparative (more
orchidaceous) and the superlative (most orchidaceous). Henry Fowler (1858–1933) in his A Dictionary of Modern English Usage
(1926) noted the old spelling (orchis)
was “applied chiefly to the English wild flowers and is accordingly the poetic
and country word”. The very idea of “the
country word” is now dated and was a particular sort of regionalism: one used
by those tied by linguistic tradition to rural England rather than certain
locations, and if orchis endures as a
literary or poetic device, it’s rare. Of
flowers, although orchidaceous can mean “of, relating to, or belonging to the
Orchidaceae”, such is the beauty of orchids, those who write of the things seem drawn to use sexual
imagery and rarely can resist “seductive” and other lovely plants are
sometimes also described as orchidaceous.
The original etymology survives in medicine as
orchidectomy although the construct of that was the Latin orchis (wrongly
interpreting orchid- as the stem) + -ectomy (the surgical removal of); the correct term is actually orchiectomy (the surgical removal of one or both testes). The synonym is testectomy which is interesting
because the use of that within the profession (usually by veterinarians) does
not of necessity imply something surgical.
The -ectomy suffix was from the Ancient Greek -εκτομία (-ektomía) (a cutting out of), from ἐκτέμνω (ektémnō)
(to cut out), the construct being ἐκ
(ek) (out) + τέμνω (témnō) (to cut). In surgery, it was appended to the name of
whatever is being removed (eg an appendectomy being the surgical removal of the
appendix) although it's borrowed (often for jocular purposes) by plumbers,
carpenters and others in professions where there often a need to "cut
things off", a "roofectomy"
being the process by which a coach-builder converts a coupé (or other closed vehicle) into some sort of convertible.
Lindsay Lohan in a Gucci Porcelain Garden print gown (the list price a reputed £4,040) at the launch of the One Family NGO (non-governmental organization), Savoy Hotel, London, June 2017 (left) and Taylor Swift in Etro navy and yellow silk floral ball gown at the Golden Globes award ceremony, The Beverly Hilton, Los Angeles, January 2020 (right).
Neither cutting-edge nor retro in the conventional sense
of the word, Lindsay Lohan’s gown was mostly well-received and for students of intricacy
it was worth studying although probably few would have called it orchidaceous because
it conveyed such a sense of the conservative; only a burqa could have been more
modest. That’s why the blue was such a
good choice; in scarlet there would have been mixed messages. Some thought it Rococo and perhaps
thematically it could have been done with just a ruffled collar, the pussy bow
a detail too many, but the patterning was clever and accentuated the lines. While it’s not certain the vivid floral
patterns on Taylor Swift’s gown were actually intended to be suggestive of
orchids, the effect was orchidaceous. It
was an exercise in monumentalism which swished around as wafted about, recalling the
flowers of an orchid in a breeze.
Orchidacity in Solod colors: Gigi Hadid and the Met Gala, New York, May 2022 (left), Sophie Monk at the TV Week Logie Awards-Gold Coast, June 2019 (centre) and Carolina Gaitan at the Academy Awards ceremony, Los Angeles, March 2022 (right).
Although dedicated (ie obsessional) orchidologists adhere
to the language from botanical taxonomy (Epidendrum, Ludisia, Masdevallia,
Erythraeum, Promenaea, Spathoglottis, Psychopsis, Angraecum, Encyclia cochleata
et al) when classifying their collections, most people describe them in terms
of the dominant color or, when a combination is particular striking (as many of
the blues & purples especially are) that mix is referenced (orange/yellow,
purple/white et al) but that doesn’t mean that for some object to be thought orchidaceous
it must be multi-hued. That’s because
the allure of an orchid lies not in the colors but in the sensuality of the shape;
they are the sexiest of flowers, soft, feminine things which seem to draw one
in to be enveloped.
Giulia Salemie (b 1993, left) & Dayane Mello (b 1989, right), Venice Film Festival, Italy, September 2016.
The trend in recent years for the “naked
dress” to become the red carpet motif of the era might have been thought to
limit the possibility of the creations being thought orchidaceous because the focus
is so much on flesh rather than fabric, of which there’s often precious
little. However, on a fortuitously warm and
not too windy September day during the Venice Film Festival, two Italian models
proved the naked look could be combined with voluminous folds; it was all in
the cut. For the reasons discussed, the
dresses could not be called anything but orchidaceous although the internet had
already suggested VVD (visible vag(ina) dress)) which in general was wrong
because it correctly the hint was of a visible vulva and on that day in Venice,
the models actually wore (that may not be the right word) color-coordinated (ie
the same fabric as the dresses) adhesive micro-knickers, held in place with a skin-friendly
surgical glue. In a nice touch, their
appearance came during the festival’s premiere of The Young Pope (the first time a television production had been
included in the program).
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