araucaria

noun

ar·​au·​car·​ia ˌa-ˌrȯ-ˈka-rē-ə 

ˌer-ȯ-

: any of a genus (Araucaria of the family Araucariaceae, the araucaria family) of South American or Australian coniferous trees that resemble pines and are often grown as ornamentals

especially : monkey puzzle

araucarian

ˌa-ˌrȯ-ˈka-rē-ən 

ˌer-ȯ-

adjective

Examples of araucaria in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The park, an oasis of trees like tipa and araucarias, sprawling lawns, and a lake filled with koi — the enormous fish that also fill the waterways of Jardín Japones in Palermo — is teeming with locals reading, painting or working out on Saturdays. —Maria Cramer, New York Times, 18 May 2023

There's a spot about four miles into the Los Lagos Trail, in Chile's Huerquehue National Park, where venerable araucaria trees preside over a primordial rain forest. —Mark Johanson, Travel + Leisure, 27 Nov. 2021

In La Araucanía, home to the Mapuche, Chile’s largest Indigenous group, deep forests are covered by century-old araucaria trees. —Charis McGowan, The Christian Science Monitor, 17 May 2021

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from New Latin, from Araucānus araucanian (borrowed from Spanish araucano) + -āria -ary entry 1

Note: Genus name introduced by the French botanist Antoine Laurent de Jussieu in Genera plantarum secundum ordines naturales disposita (Paris, 1789), pp. 413-14. Jussieu adapted the name from Juan Ignacio Molinaʼs Saggio sulla storia naturale del Chili (Bologna, 1782): "Il Pehuen, Pinus Araucana … nasce spontaneamente presso gli Araucani, e si coltiva nelle altre parti del Regno" ("The Pehuen, Pinus Araucana … grows naturally near the Araucanians, and is cultivated in the other parts of the country") (p. 182).

First Known Use

1806, in the meaning defined above