blossom
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈblɒs.əm/
ipa: /ˈblɑ.səm/
ipa: /ˈblɔs.əm/
rhymes: -ɒsəm
rhymes: -ɑsəm
Forms: form: blossoms
form: blasom
Etymology: From Middle English blosme, from Old English blostm, blostma, from Proto-Germanic *blōstmô (compare West Frisian blossem, Dutch bloesem; related to *blōstaz [compare German Blust]), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰleh₃-s- (“bloom, flower”), from *bʰleh₃- (“to bloom, to thrive”). Cognate with Albanian bleron (“to blossom, to thrive”), Latin flōs (“flower”), Flōra (“goddess of plants”). See more at blow (etymology 4).
Senses: examples: text: The blossom has come early this year.
text: And on the moꝛowe / Moſes went in to the tabernacle: and beholde / the rod of Aaron of the houſſe of Leui was budded ⁊ bare bloſomes and almondes.
ref: 1530 January 27 (Gregorian calendar), W[illiam] T[yndale], transl., [The Pentateuch] (Tyndale Bible), Malborow [Marburg], Hesse: […] Hans Luft [actually Antwerp: Johan Hoochstraten], →OCLC, Numeri xvij:[8], folio xxxiiij, verso:
text: Foppiſh and fantaſtick Ornaments are only Indications of Vice, not criminal in themſelves. Extinguiſh Vanity in the Mind, and you naturally retrench the little Superfluities of Garniture and Equipage. The Bloſſoms will fall of themſelves, when the Root that nouriſhes them is deſtroyed.
ref: 1711 March 16, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, editors, The Spectator, volume I, number 16, London: […] S[amuel] Buckley, […]; and J[acob] Tonson, […], published 1712, →OCLC, page 89:
text: Winter, spring, and summer, passed away during my labours; but I did not watch the blossom or the expanding leaves—sights which before always yielded me supreme delight, so deeply was I engrossed in my occupation.
ref: 1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], chapter III, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume I, London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, published 1 January 1818, →OCLC, page 95:
glosses: A flower, especially one indicating that a fruit tree is fruiting; (collectively) a mass of such flowers.
examples: text: The orchard is in blossom.
text: Down by the River Wye, among plum-trees in blossom, Noel had laid her baby in a hammock, and stood reading a letter: […]
ref: 1919 October, John Galsworthy, chapter I, in Saint’s Progress, London: William Heinemann, published December 1919, →OCLC, part III, 1 §, page 217:
glosses: The state or season of producing such flowers.
examples: text: This beauty, in the blossom of my youth, / When my first fire knew no adulterate incense, / Nor I no way to flatter, but my fondness; / […] long did I love this lady, / Long was my travail, long my trade to win her; / With all the duty of my soul, I served her.
ref: c. 1619–1622, Philip Massinger, “A Very Woman”, in Three New Playes: viz. The Bashful Lover, Guardian, Very Woman. […], London: […] Humphrey Moseley, […], published 1655, →OCLC, act IV, scene iii; republished as W[illiam] Gifford, editor, The Plays of Philip Massinger, […], volume IV, London: […] [F]or G[eorge] and W[illiam] Nicol [et al.] by W[illiam] Bulmer and Co., […], 1805, →OCLC, page 317:
glosses: A blooming period or stage of development; something lovely that gives rich promise.
examples: text: For colour he [Nobs, a horse] was neither black-bay, brown-bay, dapple-bay, black-grey, iron-grey, sad-grey, branded-grey, sandy-grey, dapple-grey, silver-grey, dun, mouse-dun, flea-backed, flea-bitten, rount, blossom, roan, pye-bald, rubican, sorrel, cow-coloured sorrel, bright sorrel, burnt sorrel, starling-colour, tyger-colour, wolf-colour, deer-colour, cream-colour, white, grey or black. Neither was he green, like the horse which the Emperor [Septimus] Severus took from the Parthians, […]
ref: 1834–1847, Robert Southey, “A Feeble Attempt to Describe the Physical and Moral Qualities of Nobs”, in John Wood Warter, editor, The Doctor, &c., London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green and Longman, →OCLC; new edition, London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1862, →OCLC, page 358, column 2:
glosses: The colour of a horse that has white hairs intermixed with sorrel and bay hairs.
Derived terms: apple blossom
apple blossom weevil
blossomcrown
blossomed
blossom-end rot
blossomest
blossom-faced
blossom-headed
blossoming
blossomish
blossomless
blossomly
blossom-nosed
blossom out
blossom-rock
blossomry
blossomy
blueblossom
blue blossom
cherry blossom
cherry blossom front
crash blossom
emblossom
imblossom
gin blossom
grog-blossom
in blossom
May blossom
mayblossom
may-blossom
orange blossom
out-blossom
out-blossoming
peach blossom
pease-blossom
plum blossom
pricot blossom
rape blossom
reblossom
rum-blossom
snow-blossom
sperm-blossom
sperm blossom
water blossom pea