Phrase guide

red-hot poker

noun · 3 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

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1

noun

Meaning 1

Many of the species of flowering plants of the genus Kniphofia, that produce an inflorescence in the form of a raceme of red flowers that turn yellow as they mature.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Examples

  • 1897 Sir Harry Johnston -- British Central Africa The Kniphofia (the “red-hot poker” of our gardens) is on the borderland between the grotesque and the beautiful. When its flower spike is in full bearing and the many little tube-like flowers are scarlet, lightening into yellow, it offers a fine body of colour; but without the bloom the plant with its limp attenuated leaves (green and spotted with white, having much of the aloe’s fleshiness without its pompous stiffness) looks like some monstrous caricature of a lily made in a madman’s world.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: brimstone flower

Antonyms: none provided

2

noun

Meaning 2

Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see red-hot, poker.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

3

noun

Meaning 3

widely cultivated hybrid poker plant

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: Kniphofia praecox

Antonyms: none provided

Broader terms: poker plant, Kniphofia uvaria

History

Etymology

No etymology was provided for this word.