English edit

Etymology edit

From re- +‎ florescent. Alternatively, directly from Latin reflorescens, present active participle of refloresco (I flower anew), from re- +‎ floresco (I flower).

Pronunciation edit

  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˌri.fləˈrɛs.ənt/, /ˌri.flɔːˈrɛs.ənt/, /ˌri.flɒˈrɛs.ənt/[1]
  • (US) IPA(key): /ˌri.fləˈrɛs.ənt/, /ˌri.flʊˈrɛs.ənt/, /ˌri.flɔˈrɛs.ənt/[1]
  • Rhymes: -ɛsənt

Adjective edit

reflorescent (comparative more reflorescent, superlative most reflorescent)

  1. (rare) That flowers again.
    • [1872 February 15, “Roses and Their Nomenclature”, in The Journal of Horticulture, Cottage Gardener and Country Gentlemen, page 150:
      The nearest approach to Remontant as used for Roses, would be, perhaps, "Reflorescent" or "Ever-bloom".]
    • 1905, Randolph Bedford, The Snare of Strength, London: William Heinemann, page 340:
      The half darkness became dissilient; the first beam of sunlight showed to Gifford and Stralie, growing out of the lime-crop that had shattered him, the reflorescent cotton-trees, whose blood the sudden breaking of the drought had startled into two blowths in the one year.
    • 1946, “Paris”, in Stephen Spender, transl., edited by Hannah Josephson and Malcolm Cowley, Aragon: Poet of Resurgent France, translation of original by Louis Aragon, page 82:
      In August most sweet reflorescent of rose trees / Folk of everywhere the blood of Paris.
    • 2013, Robert Hollander, “Dante's Cato Again”, in Elena Lombardi, Maggie Kilgour, editors, Dantean Dialogues: Engaging with the Legacy of Amilcare Iannucci, University of Toronto Press, →ISBN, page 112:
      K. Marti [] suggests that Dante may have also been thinking of the iuncus in Isaiah 35:7, as well as the reflorescent tree in Job 14:7.
  2. (rare, figurative) That flourishes again; resurgent, reviving.
    • 1897 October, H. B. Mackey, “St. Francis de Sales as a Preacher”, in The Dublin Review, volume 121, page 398:
      The absence of suitable means of expression in the vernacular for the rich dogmatic and ascetic teaching of a former age had led men to apply to this divine matter the classic forms so exuberantly reflorescent in the sixteenth century.
    • 1957, Vladimir Kean, transl., Doctor Pascal, London: Elek Books, translation of Le Docteur Pascal by Émile Zola, page 164:
      She, in the relative shade of her parasol, was revelling in this bath of light, like a plant adapted to a southern exposure; whilst he, reflorescent, felt the burning sap of the soil rise up through his limbs in a flood of exultant virility.
    • 1980, Grace M. Mayer, Once upon a City, New York: Octagon Books, →ISBN, page 289:
      Out of the “primitive life” of this mining camp and from the fecund genius of Charles F. McKim and William S. Richardson sprang the inspired vastness of a McKim, Mead & White coup de maître, its interior reflorescent of the Baths of Caracalla.
    • 1983 January, Dennis Biggins, The Modern Language Review, volume 78, number 1, Modern Humanities Research Association, page 175:
      Lawler's play was greeted (with excessive optimism) as the seed of a reflorescent native drama that would bear rich and truly Australian fruits.

Related terms edit

References edit

  1. 1.0 1.1 reflorescent, adj.”, in OED Online  , Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.