mayflower

Etymology

It is a compound from English May + flower, naming plants that bloom in the month of May.^[2][3][4][5] The OED compares May blossom.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Any of various plants that flower in May, especially the primrose, the cuckooflower and the marsh marigold: 1527, in L. Andrewe's translation of Brunschwig's Vertuose Boke.^[2][4] Etymonline dates the word to the 1600s,^[3] and Dictionary.com to 1560–70.^[5]

Semantic evolution

In Britain the name was given locally to several plants of the season: the hawthorn, the cuckooflower or lady's smock, the marsh marigold and others.^[3][4] In North America it was attached to spring flowers of the New World, first to the trailing arbutus (1778, in Jonathan Carver's travels), which is still its usual sense in New England,^[2][6][4] then to the pink azalea (1838) and to the anemone, the hepatica and other early-flowering plants (1892).^[2] The Dictionary of American Regional English records it for the arbutus chiefly in the Northeast.^[6] In Jamaica it named two trees of the genus Dalbergia (1837),^[2] and in lacemaking a bobbin-lace filling (1924).^[2] A variety of apple was called mayflower in 1664.^[2] Etymonline notes that Mayflower was a popular name for ships in the early 17th century.^[3]

Timeline

• 1527 – any of various plants flowering in May.^[2][4]
• 1664 – a variety of apple (now obsolete).^[2]
• 1778 – in North America, the trailing arbutus.^[2][6]
• 1837 – in Jamaica, either of two trees of the genus Dalbergia.^[2]
• 1838 – the pink azalea of North America.^[2]
• 1892 – other North American spring flowers, such as the anemone and the hepatica.^[2]
• 1924 – in lacemaking, a bobbin-lace filling.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. Any of various plants that bloom in spring, especially in May; in Britain, the hawthorn, the marsh marigold or the cuckooflower.^[4][2][7][8]
2. (chiefly New England) The trailing arbutus.^[4][2][7][9]
3. Any of several other North American spring flowers, such as the hepatica, the spring beauty or an anemone.^[4][2]
4. (lacemaking) A bobbin-lace filling of diamond shapes in a honeycomb mesh.^[2]

Related words

• May
• flower

Usage notes

Capitalised, Mayflower is the name of the ship that carried the Pilgrim Fathers from Plymouth to Massachusetts in 1620.^[10][9] From the ship's name the OED records an attributive use, from 1921, for people descended from the earliest European settlers of North America.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b 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 Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c Cassidy, Frederic G. & Joan Houston Hall (eds.) (1985–2002), Dictionary of American Regional English, vols I–IV, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers
9. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins