Word for Wednesday: Tulip

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Our Word for Wednesday theme for August is flowers. 

The word flower entered English around 1200 as ‘flour’ (with spelling variants including ‘flur’, ‘flor’, ‘floer’, ‘flor’, ‘floyer’, and ‘flowre’). It comes from the Old French ‘flor’, from the Latin ‘florem’. The word was used in reference to both blooms and grain until the late fourteenth century, after which the spellings ‘flower’ and ‘flour’ were used to differentiate between the two. 

Last week we looked at the word daisy, and today’s word is tulip. 

A tulip is a spring-flowering plant that belongs to the lily family. It is known for its brightly-coloured cup-shaped flowers. 

Tulips were first cultivated in Persia in probably the tenth century and were brought to Europe from Turkey in the sixteenth century. The word entered English in the 1570s, from the Dutch or German ‘tulpe’, from the French ‘tulipe’. All the European variations of the word derive from the Turkish ‘tülbent’, which in turn comes from the Persian ‘dulband’. ‘Tülbent’ and ‘dulband’ both mean ‘turban’ and the flower was named for its resemblance in shape to this type of headwear. 
 


12 Aug 2020
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