lavender

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English lavendre,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman lavendre,^{[5][6][7][8][9]} from Medieval Latin lavendula (“lavender”), also written lavandula and livendula,^{[5][2][8][10]} which the OED finds in glossaries of the 10th and 11th centuries.^[5] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded from the second half of the 13th century.^[11] The medieval Latin name was also taken into Old High German lavendla, whence modern German Lavendel.^[5] Dutch, Swedish and Danish now have the same form.^[5][12]

The origin of the Latin word is uncertain.^[8][7][13] One view, already Skeat's, takes the early form livendula from Latin līvidus (“bluish”), the source of livid, for the colour of the flowers.^{[14][2][6][15][16]} Another links the word with Italian lavanda and French lavande, from Latin lavō (“to wash”), since the plant was used to scent bath water and washed linen;^[17][18][12] Etymonline and Barnhart think that the word was at least associated with this family later.^[6][15] The OED doubts the "washing" explanation: a word meaning "washing" would hardly come to name something that was only an extra in washing, and the earliest form seems to be livendula.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The plant Lavandula, a small shrub with pale lilac flowers and narrow leaves: before 1300 in an English vocabulary,^[5] about 1300 in Etymonline,^[6] and 1373 in Barnhart.^[19][15] Hoad dates the word to the 15th century.^[8]

Semantic evolution

From 1584 the word was used for the dried flowers and stalks laid among linen and clothes to keep moths away,^[5] which gave the phrase to lay up in lavender, to put away carefully for later use, still heard in Northamptonshire and Berkshire dialect in the 19th century;^[20][12] in southern Ireland to lie in lavender meant to lie snug and comfortable.^[20] Johnson (1755) described it as one of the "verticillate plants", with flowers in whorls.^[21] The colour sense, a very pale blue with a tinge of red, is recorded as a noun from 1882,^[5][6] and as an adjective from 1882 in the OED but from 1840 in Etymonline;^[5][6] the OED also has lavender rays for ultraviolet light in photography from 1840 to 1911.^[5] In slang, lavender meant something good or pleasant, as in it ain't all lavender (1895), and earlier flattery (1838),^[22] and in American English, from 1928, the word became a euphemism for homosexual;^[22][5] the OED dates the noun sense "homosexuality" to 1929, in C. Porter's song I'm a Gigolo.^[5] In film, lavender was a positive stock used to make duplicate negatives (1936).^[5]

Timeline

• before 1300 – the plant Lavandula.^[5]
• 1530 – applied to other plants, as in sea lavender.^[5]
• 1584 – dried flowers and stalks laid among stored clothes.^[5]
• 1820 – verb, to perfume with lavender, in Keats.^[5][10]
• 1840 – adjective, pale purple, in Etymonline,^[6] and lavender rays in photography.^[5]
• 1882 – the colour of lavender flowers, noun and adjective.^[5][6]
• 1895 – slang it ain't all lavender, it is not all pleasant.^[22]
• 1928 – euphemism for homosexual (originally American).^[22][5]
• 1936 – in film, a positive stock for making duplicate negatives.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. Any of several shrubs of the mint family (genus Lavandula), grown for their spikes of fragrant mauve or purple flowers and their aromatic oil.^[13][10][5]
2. The dried flowers and stalks of this plant, used to scent clothes and linen: a sachet of lavender in every drawer.^[13][5]
3. A pale bluish-purple colour.^[13][10][5]
4. A perfume scented with lavender.^[13]

Adjective

1. Of a pale bluish-purple colour: a lavender scarf.^[13][5]
2. (slang, originally US) Relating to homosexuality; gay.^[22][5]

Verb

1. To scent with lavender, or to put lavender among linen.^[10][5][7]

Word family

• lavender cotton
• sea lavender
• spike lavender

Related words

• launder
• livid
• lave
• laundry

Usage notes

A separate Middle English noun lavender, a washerwoman or laundress, was borrowed from Old French lavandier, lavandiere, and was used from before 1350 to 1567;^[5][7] Chaucer used it.^[23] Etymonline adds that it apparently also meant a prostitute or camp follower, and that it is found as a surname from the early 13th century.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
3. ^ Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
4. ^ Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891), A Middle-English Dictionary, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
12. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
15. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
16. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
17. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
18. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
19. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
20. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
21. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
22. ^ a b c d e Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
23. ^ Skeat, W. W., ed. (1894), The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, vol. VI: Glossarial Index, Oxford: Clarendon Press