Image:Saguaro cactus Aan05.jpg|thumb|Saguaro cactus (Ansel Adams, 1941)
English
wikipedia
Pronunciation
IPA|/�kækt�s/
audio|en-us-cactus.ogg|Audio (US)
Noun
en-noun|plcacti|pl2cactuses
- botany Any member of the family Cactaceae, a family of flowering New World succulent plants suited to a hot, semi-desert climate.
- Any succulent plant with a thick fleshy stem bearing spines but no leaf|leaves, including euphorbs.
Usage notes
Wikisource1911Enc?|Cactus
The most precise definition of cactus includes only plants from the New World (the Americas) belonging to the family Cactaceae. Only one species of cactus is native to the Old World, namely the genus Pereskea is a shrubby leafy cactus that grows in western Africa. However, many African species of the family Euphorbiaceae grow in forms and shapes that resemble large species of Cactaceae. These forms are colloquially referred to as �cactus�. In general, then, any usage of the term �cactus� to plants from the Old World refers to plants in the Euphorbiaceae.
Translations
trans-top|member of the Cactaceae
Bosnian: kaktus m
Chinese: �人� (trad/simp) (xi�nrénzh�ng)
Croatian: kaktus m
Dutch: cactus m
Esperanto: kakto
Finnish: kaktus
French: cactus m
German: Kaktus m
Icelandic: kaktus m
Ido: kaktuso
Isthmus Zapotec: biaagueta
trans-mid
Japanese: ���� (saboten), ����� (shaboten)
Korean: ì� ì�¸ì�¥ (seoninjang)
Lithuanian: kaktusas
Navajo: hosh
Polish: kaktus m
Portuguese: cacto m
Russian: как��� (káktus) m
Serbian:
:Cyrillic: как��� m
:Roman: kaktus m
Swedish: kaktus c
trans-bottom
See also
succulent
Adjective
cactus
- (Australian slang) Non-functional, broken, exhausted.
commons
Category:English nouns with irregular plurals
Category:Plants
Latin
Etymology
From AGr.|la polytonic|κάκ�ο� italbrac|kaktos "cardoon"
Noun
la-noun|cactus|cacti#Latin|cactī|m|second
- the cardoon, Cynara cardunculus
Inflection
ladecl2
la-decl-2nd|cact
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