clover

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English clovere, usually claver,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English clāfre, also clǣfre,^[2][5][4][6] from Proto-West Germanic *klaibrā,^[1] which Barnhart and Etymonline give as Proto-Germanic *klaibrōn.^[3][7] It is cognate with Middle Low German klēver, Middle Dutch clāver and Dutch klaver.^[3][7][4] The OED and Hoad take it as a compound whose first part is the word seen in Old Saxon klē and Old High German klēo, modern German Klee, and whose second part is a worn-down form of an unidentified word.^[2][6][8] Barnhart derives it from Proto-Indo-European *gloi-bhrōn, from the root *glei-.^[3] Klein and Liberman connect it with cleave, to stick, so that clover would be the plant with sticky sap;^[9][10][7] Liberman notes that its sticky juice was the base of the most popular kind of honey,^[10] while Skeat called the connection with cleave impossible.^[11] The Middle English claver comes from clǣfre with a shortened vowel, and clover from clāfre, kept in some dialect until it spread and became standard about 1700.^[2][3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Clover, the plant Trifolium, especially white and red clover: in Old English glossaries, as clabre and clafre,^[2] about 1000 according to Barnhart.^[3] An Old English herbal gives clæfre as another name for a plant, and a medical text speaks of white clover.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The plant name was extended from 1548, in William Turner's Names of Herbes, to many related or similar plants, with a qualifying word.^[2] Claver remained the usual spelling in the 16th and 17th centuries, in Gerard, Cotgrave and Bacon.^[2] Clover was rich food for cattle, and so to live in clover, to live in luxury, is recorded from 1710;^[2][7][12] Johnson explained the phrase by clover being "extremely delicious and fattening to cattle".^[2] The supposed luck of a four-leaf clover is first mentioned in English about 1500, and the phrase four-leafed clover from 1831.^[7] Dunbar used clover humorously as a term of endearment in the early 16th century.^[2] The verb, to sow land with clover, is recorded from 1652,^[2] and cloverleaf from 1882, for a road junction from 1933.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1000 – Old English clāfre.^[3][2]
• c. 1265 – the single early Middle English example of the spelling clouere.^[2]
• c. 1500 – first mention of the luck of a four-leaf clover.^[7]
• 1548 – other plants of the pea family, with a qualifying word.^[2]
• 1652 – verb, to sow with clover.^[2]
• about 1700 – the spelling clover replaces claver.^[2][3]
• 1710 – to live in clover.^[2][7]
• 1882 – cloverleaf; a road junction from 1933.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. Any plant of the genus Trifolium in the legume family, with leaves in three parts and dense round heads of small flowers, many grown as fodder for cattle: a field of red clover.^[13][4][2]
2. Any of various similar or related plants, such as sweet clover.^[13][4][2]
3. in clover: in comfort and luxury: After the sale of the farm they were living in clover.^[13][2][7]

Word family

• clovered
• clovery
• cloverleaf
• Japan clover
• Japanese clover
• four-leaf clover
• hop clover
• water clover

Related words

• cleave
• clay

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b Liberman, Anatoly (2008), An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology: An Introduction, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins