Columbine

See also: columbine

English

Etymology 1

From columbine.

Proper noun

Columbine

1. A census-designated place in Arapahoe County and Jefferson County, Colorado, United States, infamous for the school shooting that happened there in 1999.
2. The sweetheart of Harlequin in old pantomimes.
   • 1845, Leigh Hunt, The Indicator: a Miscellany for the Fields and the Fireside, page 213:

     The Clown is a London cockney, with a prodigious eye to his own comfort and muffins,—a Lord Mayor's fool, who loved "everything that was good;" and Columbine is the boarding-school girl, ripe for running away with, and making a dance of it all the way from Chelsea to Gretna Green.

Derived terms

• Columbiner

Etymology 2

From the school shooting that occurred at Columbine High School in 1999.

Noun

Columbine (plural Columbines)

1. An incident in which someone shoots multiple people at a school.
   • 2005, Nancy E. Dowd, Dorothy G. Singer, Robin Fretwell Wilson, Handbook of Children, Culture, and Violence, page 333:

     Research indicates that many children are afraid of “a Columbine” occurring in their school, or are concerned about other forms of school violence (Aronson, 2000; Garbarino & deLara, 2002; Gaughan et al., 2001; National Association of Attorneys General, 2000).

   • 2011, C.M. Dabbah, The House of Shades, page v:

     Granted, I'm not exactly grabbing an ax and going to town or pulling a “Columbine” but the idea of engaging in such activities has crossed my twisted little mind and plagued my black little heart in dreams only.

   • 2012, John Patton O'Dell, The Blue Wore Through: Collected Works of John Patton O'dell:

     I remember the second song that played was “Run to the Hills.” I thought my head was going to explode, thinking we were ten minutes away from a Columbine.

   • 2013, Annette Fuentes, Lockdown High: When the Schoolhouse Becomes a Jailhouse:

     You've got people in your schools right now plotting a Columbine.

   • 2014, Richard Ford, Let Me Be Frank With You: A Frank Bascombe Book:

     The suburbs are supposedly where nothing happens, like Auden said about what poetry doesn't do; an overinhabited faux terrain dozing in inertia, occasionally disrupted by “a Columbine” or “an Oklahoma City” or a hurricane to remind us what's really real.