flower

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /flaʊə/, /ˈflaʊ.ə/, US /ˈflaʊ.ɚ/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English flur, flour, borrowed from Anglo-Norman flur, Old French flor, flour,^[2][3][4] from Latin flōs (“flower”), genitive flōris,^[2][3] from Proto-Indo-European *bhel- (“to thrive, bloom”), the source also of bloom and blossom.^[2][5][3] It is the same word as flour.^[6][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The blossom of a plant, or a flowering plant: about 1200 in Etymonline, before 1200 in the Ancrene Riwle according to Barnhart, before 1225 in the OED.^[2][3][7]

Semantic evolution

In the sense of a blossom it ousted its Old English cognate blōstm, the source of blossom.^[2] The best or most excellent of anything is from the early 13th century,^[2] which led to the best part of ground wheat, which became flour.^[2][6] The spelling flour was limited to ground grain by the late 17th century,^[8][6] though Barnhart says the spellings were not fully kept apart until the 1830s.^[3] In Middle English the word was also a symbol of transitoriness, a beautiful woman (about 1300) and virginity.^[2] The verb, to prosper, is from about 1200, and of a plant, to blossom, from about 1300.^[2] Flower child, a gentle hippie, is from 1967.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – a blossom.^[2][3]
• early 13th century – the best of anything.^[2]
• c. 1300 – verb, to blossom.^[2]
• 1369 – flowery.^[3]
• 1967 – flower child.^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. The blossom of a plant, often brightly coloured, that produces seeds.
2. A plant grown for its blossoms.
3. (botany) The reproductive structure of a flowering plant, with stamens and pistils.
4. The best or finest part of something: the flower of the nation's youth.
5. The time of greatest vigour; prime.

Verb

1. To produce flowers; to bloom.
2. To develop fully; to flourish.

Word family

• flowerer
• flowerless
• flowered
• flowerful
• flowerlike
• flowerpot
• flowery
• passionflower

Related words

• fleur
• flora
• floret
• florid
• florist
• floristics
• inflorescence
• flour
• bloom
• blossom
• flourish
• floral

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press