yarrow
See also: Yarrow
English edit
Pronunciation edit
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈjæɹəʊ/
Audio (Southern England) (file) - (General American) IPA(key): /ˈjɛɹoʊ/
- Rhymes: -æɹəʊ
Etymology 1 edit
From Middle English ȝarowe, yarowe, yarwe, from Old English ġearwe, from Proto-West Germanic *garwā (“yarrow, yarrow-like herbs”), perhaps derived from *garu (“prepared, ready (of food”)), as the plant was used medicinally for digestion.[1][2]
Cognate with Dutch gerw (“yarrow”) and German (Schaf-)garbe.
Noun edit
yarrow (usually uncountable, plural yarrows)
- Any of several pungent Eurasian and North American herbs, of the genus Achillea, used in traditional herbal medicine.
- 1922, Eleanour Sinclair Rohde, The Old English Herbals[1], Longmans, Green and Co.:
- Yarrow is one of the aboriginal English plants, and from time immemorial it has been used in incantations and by witches. Country folk still regard it as one of our most valuable herbs, especially for rheumatism.
- Common yarrow, Achillea millefolium, the type species of the genus.
- 1612, Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion, song 13 p. 218:
- The Yarrow, where-with-all he stops the wound-made gore:
- 1979, Victor Kaplan, The Woman who Gathered Yarrow; The Box; Miss Vesey's Other Leg, →ISBN, page 11:
- “Oh, yarrow! This is it,” she said, extracting a single long stemmed ferny grass with clusters of small white flowers from the bouquet in her hand.
Synonyms edit
- (Achillea spp.): milfoil, achillea
- (Achillea millefolium): devil's nettle, sanguinary, soldier's woundwort, thousand-leaf
- See also Thesaurus:yarrow
Hyponyms edit
- Alps yarrow (Achillea distans)
- Chinese yarrow (Achillea alpina)
- Egyptian yarrow (Achillea aegyptiaca)
- fernleaf yarrow (Achillea filipendulina)
- Ligurian yarrow (Achillea ligustica)
- noble yarrow (Achillea nobilis)
- Siberian yarrow (Achillea sibirica)
- sweet yarrow (Achillea ageratum)
Translations edit
herb of the genus Achillea
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Achillea millefolium — see common yarrow
References edit
- ^ Friedrich Kluge (1883) “Garbe”, in John Francis Davis, transl., Etymological Dictionary of the German Language, published 1891
- ^ van der Sijs, Nicoline, editor (2010), “gerwe”, in Etymologiebank, Meertens Institute
Further reading edit
- Achillea on Wikispecies.Wikispecies
- yarrow on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
- yarrow at USDA Plants database
Etymology 2 edit
Origin unknown. Perhaps imitative of the bird's cry; compare yaffle, hewhole.
Noun edit
yarrow (plural yarrows)
- (UK) A green woodpecker, of species Picus viridis.
Translations edit
Picus viridis — see green woodpecker
Further reading edit
- European green woodpecker on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
- Picus viridis on Wikispecies.Wikispecies