See also: Mallow

English

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Common mallow - Malva sylvestris

Etymology

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From Middle English malwe, from Old English mealwe, borrowed from Latin malva. Compare the doublet mauve.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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mallow (countable and uncountable, plural mallows)

  1. Any of a group of flowering plants in several genera of the taxonomic family Malvaceae, especially of the genus Malva. Several species are edible by humans.
    • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies [] (First Folio), London: [] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:
      Gonzalo. Had I plantation of this isle, my lord,—
      Antonio. He’ld sow’t with nettle-seed.
      Sebastian. Or docks, or mallows.
    • 1611, The Holy Bible, [] (King James Version), London: [] Robert Barker, [], →OCLC, Job 30:3-4:
      For want and famine they were solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste. Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their meat.
    • 1684, John Dryden, “From Horace, Epode 2”, in The Second Part of Miscellany Poems[1], 4th edition, London: Jacob Tonson, page 79:
      Not Heathpout, or the rarer Bird, / Which Phasis, or Ionia yields, / More pleasing Morsels would afford / Than the fat Olives of my Fields; / Than Shards or Mallows for the Pot, / That keep the loosen’d Body sound, / Or than the Lamb that falls by Lot, / To the just Guardian of my Ground.
    • 1840, Robert Browning, Sordello, Book IV, in Sordello; Strafford; Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1863, p. 112,[2]
      The thoroughfares were overrun with weed
      — Docks, quitchgrass, loathly mallows no man plants.
    • 1895 May 7, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, chapter 7, in The Time Machine: An Invention, New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt and Company, →OCLC:
      The Time Traveller paused, put his hand into his pocket, and silently placed two withered flowers, not unlike very large white mallows, upon the little table. Then he resumed his narrative.
    • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
      'Twas early June, the new grass was flourishing everywheres, the posies in the yard—peonies and such—in full bloom, the sun was shining, and the water of the bay was blue, with light green streaks where the shoal showed.
    • 2017 October 19, “Hallohallo”, in Circuit Break, Konami:
      Hallo Hallo, brain of tallow, / Guts are gone, noggin’s hollow. / Seeking sweets and marshing mallows, / Watch your back, and your candy sack.
  2. Larentia clavaria, an uncommon moth found across Eurasia.

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