# wallflower
## English
### Alternative forms

* wall-flower, wall flower

### Etymology

From wall +‎ flower.

### Pronunciation

* (UK) IPA: /ˈwɔːlˌflaʊ.ə/
* (US) IPA: /ˈwɔlˌflaʊ.ɚ/, /ˈwɑlˌflaʊ.ɚ/
* Audio (General Australian):(file)

### Noun

wallflower (plural wallflowers)
* Any of several short-lived herbs or shrubs of the Erysimum genus with bright yellow to red flowers.
** 1809, William Nicholson, “BOTANY”, in The British Encyclopedia, or Dictionary of Arts and Sciences; […], volume I (A … B), London: Printed by C[harles] Whittingham, […]; for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, […], →OCLC, column 1:A polypetalous corolla is either cruciform, as in a wall-flower, rosaceous, papilionaceous, as in the pea kind, or incomplete, when some parts found in analogous flowers are wanting.
* Gastrolobium grandiflorum, a poisonous bushy shrub, endemic to Australia.
* A person who does not dance at a party, due to shyness or unpopularity; by extension, anyone who is left on the sidelines while an activity takes place.
** 1878, Fannie Bean, Dr. Mortimer's Patient: A Novel, page 23:Mrs. Galbraith shook all over with laughter as she replied, "Hear that boy, asking me to dance ! I'm content to be a wallflower, now-a-days."
** 1885, The Freemason's Repository, page 133:And now, by virtue of his office, he is entitled to a seat in the Grand Lodge. Is it any wonder he is a wall-flower there […]
** 1897, Mrs. C. E. Humphry, Manners for Women, page 53:It is a triumph, of course, to have plenty of partners, and not to be a wallflower for a single dance.
** 1913, Plasterer, page 8:Jack Breen was a wallflower; still at the same time I noticed he was cultivating an ornamental smile — a Jack of Trumps, you bet.
** 1921, Collier's, page 3:She was a wallflower in a sleepy little town itself a wallflower. She was a joke to the village wits and a byword to the village belles.
** 2013 May 22, Dan Shive, El Goonish Shive (webcomic), Comic for Wednesday, May 22, 2013:"Where--oh. Hidden in the corner. You two aren't already going all wallflower, are you?" "We are not wallflowers." "To be fair, I can be. But then I get mad at myself for it and get all loud and snarky."
** 2017, Sam Wasson, Improv Nation: How We Made a Great American Art, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, →ISBN, page 94:Second City was a wallflower at the show business ball. It needed to be. Improvisers needed to fail, and fail safely; and in the Midwest, far from Broadway and Hollywood, they really could. Second-class stature was the secret ingredient, ...
* (informal) Any person who is socially awkward, shy, or reserved.
** 2019, Liz Tyner, To Win a Wallflower, Harlequin, →ISBN:I've always been a wallflower, even in my own home. But, I'm willing to learn to be a part of your world. I would like to. I have already told my parents that I want to go to soirées.

#### Derived terms

* wallflower cabbage
* wallflower poison

#### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

### Verb

wallflower (third-person singular simple present wallflowers, present participle wallflowering, simple past and past participle wallflowered)
* (intransitive) To stand shyly apart from a dance, waiting to be asked to join in.
** 2010, Alexandra Carter, Janet O'Shea, The Routledge Dance Studies Reader, page 237:[…] the idea that a full tango experience is impossible without the presence of wallflowers and without the threat of wallflowering as the potential dancers enter the tango club.

### See also

* shrinking violet

### Further reading

* Erysimum on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
* Category:wallflower on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons
* “wallflower”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.