dusty miller

American  

noun

1. Botany.

   1. any of several composite plants, as Centaurea cineraria, Senecio cineraria, or the beach wormwood, having pinnate leaves covered with whitish pubescence.

   2. rose campion.

2. Angling. a type of artificial fly used chiefly for trout and salmon.

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dusty miller British  

noun

1. Also called: snow-in-summer.  a caryophyllaceous plant, Cerastium tomentosum, of SE Europe and Asia, having white flowers and downy stems and leaves: cultivated as a rock plant

2. a plant, Artemisia stelleriana, of NE Asia and E North America, having small yellow flower heads and downy stems and leaves: family Asteraceae (composites)

3. any of various other downy plants, such as the rose campion

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Etymology

Origin of dusty miller

First recorded in 1815–25

Example Sentences

Here, they can wander among scarecrows and jack-o’-lanterns, investigate a Victorian playhouse, pot up a ghostly-looking dusty miller plant to take home and put on a show with insect and owl puppets.

From New York Times • Oct. 10, 2019

Lucy and I had both a fight for it with the dusty miller; I know it was a hard fight on my part, and I am quite heroic.

From "Dracula" by Bram Stoker

North Wind grew very small indeed, so small that she could not have blown the dust off a dusty miller, as the Scotch children call a yellow auricula.

From At the Back of the North Wind by MacDonald, George

I. Hey, the dusty miller, And his dusty coat; He will win a shilling, Or he spend a groat.

From The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. With a New Life of the Poet, and Notices, Critical and Biographical by Allan Cunningham by Burns, Robert

Fills the dusty peck, Brings the dusty siller; I wad gie my coatie For the dusty miller.

From The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. With a New Life of the Poet, and Notices, Critical and Biographical by Allan Cunningham by Burns, Robert