daisy
1 Americannoun
plural
daisies-
any of various composite plants the flowers of which have a yellow disk and white rays, as the English daisy and the oxeye daisy.
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Also called daisy ham. a small section of pork shoulder, usually smoked, boned, and weighing from two to four pounds.
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Slang. someone or something of first-rate quality.
That new car is a daisy.
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a cheddar cheese of cylindrical shape, weighing about 20 pounds.
idioms
noun
noun
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a small low-growing European plant, Bellis perennis, having a rosette of leaves and flower heads of yellow central disc flowers and pinkish-white outer ray flowers: family Asteraceae (composites)
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Also called: oxeye daisy. marguerite. moon daisy. a Eurasian composite plant, Leucanthemum vulgare having flower heads with a yellow centre and white outer rays
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any of various other composite plants having conspicuous ray flowers, such as the Michaelmas daisy and Shasta daisy
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slang an excellent person or thing
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dead and buried
Other Word Forms
- daisied adjective
Etymology
Origin of daisy
before 1000; Middle English dayesye, Old English dægesēge the day's eye
Explanation
A daisy is a cheerful white flower with yellow in the center. Drive through the countryside in mid-summer and you can often see whole fields full of daisies. Daisies grow wild in many places, and they're also cultivated in gardens as a perennial, a plant that returns year after year. One invasive variation is called a "lawn daisy" because it quickly and easily takes over grassy lawns and is notoriously hard to mow down. The word daisy comes from day's eye, an informal name that arose from the flower's habit of closing its petals when the sun goes down at the end of the day.
Vocabulary lists containing daisy
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
And then “the daisy chain of correlated bets” will start to fracture.
From MarketWatch • Feb. 23, 2026
All three sections brim with short essays on various plant species such as rose, clover, iris, violet, daisy and lily of the valley, which Dior fashioned into silhouettes and blossoming decorative surfaces.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 21, 2025
The wall paintings are adorned with candelabras, stringed instruments called lyres, white cranes and a delicate daisy.
From BBC • Jun. 19, 2025
Some plants actually mimic animals, such as the South African beetle daisy, for example, which evolved petals that imitate dark flies resting on their flowers, thereby fooling bugs into "mating" with them.
From Salon • May 27, 2025
They lay there, dumb as daisy petals in a summer meadow.
From "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
