ablow
English edit
Etymology edit
Pronunciation edit
Adjective edit
ablow (not comparable)
- (archaic, postpositive) Blossoming, blooming, in blossom.
- 1867, Augusta Webster, “Lota”, in A Woman Sold and Other Poems, London, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, page 238:
- [...] The flower breaks from its sheath and is ablow / And gives its richest perfumes. [...]
- 1891, Lizette Woodworth Reese, “Hallowmas” (poem), in A Handful of Lavender,[1] Houghton, Mifflin and Company, page 13:
- You know, the year's not always May —
- Oh, once the lilacs were ablow !
- 1989, Stephen L. Swynn, Garden Wisdom: Or, from One Generation to Another[2], Ayer Publishing, →ISBN, page 110:
- [...] against the green, yet, growing in tilled soil, grow stronger and taller than any daffodil can grow in turf : hundreds of them are ablow together, and the very robustness of their splendour [...]
- (dated, postpositive) Blowing or being blown; windy.
Usage notes edit
- Like most adjectives formed from this sense of a-, ablow never serves as an attributive premodifier; one can say “the flowers were ablow”, “ablow, the flowers [...]”, and even “[...] the flowers ablow [...]”, but not *“[...] the ablow flowers”.
Anagrams edit
Scots edit
Etymology 1 edit
a- + below, on analogy of above, afore, etc. See also aneth.
Alternative forms edit
Pronunciation edit
Preposition edit
ablow
Adverb edit
ablow
References edit
- “ablow” in the Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries.
Etymology 2 edit
Adverb edit
ablow
References edit
- “ablow, adv.2” in the Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries.