sequoia means sequoiadendron giganteum, a coniferous evergreen tree formerly in the genus Sequoia, now placed in Sequoiadendron. It carries an Arena rating of 1542, earned across 13 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, sequoia ranks #497 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words, #1,237 of 17,127 for Most Vivid Words, #1,278 of 17,124 for Most Sublime Words, #2,860 of 17,126 for Most Satisfying to Say.
sequoia is pronounced /səˈkwɔɪ.ə/.
Why “sequoia” is a great word
A massive, long-lived coniferous evergreen tree, specifically the coast redwood or the giant sequoia. From New Latin Sequoia, the genus name published in 1847 by the Austrian botanist Stephan Endlicher, of uncertain origin but popularly attributed to Sequoyah (c. 1767–1843), the Cherokee polymath who created the Cherokee syllabary. Unlike the broadly applied 'redwood' (which can ambiguously denote any tree with reddish timber) or the common 'pine' (a genus with bundled needles and woody-scaled cones), sequoia refers with botanical precision to these titans with their scale-like leaves and fibrous, fire-resistant bark. It is the cinnamon-red pillar in the coastal fog, the staggering girth of a trunk you could drive a car through, and the silent endurance of a being that was already ancient when empires rose and fell—a monument not to history, but to time itself.
noun
- Sequoiadendron giganteum, a coniferous evergreen tree formerly in the genus Sequoia, now placed in Sequoiadendron.
- Sequoia sempervirens, a coniferous evergreen tree, the only living species of the genus Sequoia.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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