Dictionary

windflower en · NOUN

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂weh₁- Proto-Indo-European *-ti Proto-Indo-European *h₂wḗh₁ti Proto-Indo-European *h₂wéh₁n̥ts Proto-Germanic *windaz Proto-West Germanic *wind Old English wind Middle English wynd English wind English flower English windflower From wind + flower.

Meanings

1. Synonym of wood anemone (Anemone nemorosa).
   • “When windflowers blossom on the sea And fishes skim along the plain, Then we who part this weary day, Then you and I shall meet again.” 1881, Christina Rossetti, “One Foot on the Sea, and One on Shore”, in A Pageant and Other Poems, London: Macmillan, page 95:
   • “[…] We spent an hour in a hazel copse, picking primroses and looking at the little white windflowers. One doesn’t pick the windflowers,” he explained, “because in an hour they’re withered. […]” 1963, Aldous Huxley, chapter 7, in Island, New York: Bantam, page 101:
   • Here is spring were celandine, marsh marigold, wind-flower, primrose, cowslip and dog's violet. 1977, K.M. Elizabeth Murray, Caught in the Web of Words, Oxford: Oxford University Press, page 13:
   • Herba venti, Anemone. Wind flower, the juyce snuffed up the nose purgeth the head, it cleanseth filthy ulcers, encreaseth milk in nurses, and outwardly by ointment helps Leprosyes. 1649, Nicholas Culpeper, A physicall directory, or, A translation of the London dispensatory made by the Colledge of Physicians in London, London: Peter Cole, page 40:
   • The first windflowers were out, and all the wood seemed pale with the pallor of endless little anemones, sprinkling the shaken floor. 1928, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter VIII, in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, [Germany?]: Privately printed, →OCLC, page 101:

Forms

Deriveds

snowdrop windflower

Synonyms

wood anemone