Dutchman's breeches

Or Dutch·man's-breech·es

[duhch-muhnz brich-iz]

noun

plural

Dutchman's breeches 

1. a plant, Dicentra cucullaria, of the fumitory family, having long clusters of pale yellow, two-spurred flowers.

Dutchman's-breeches

noun

1. Also called: colicweed. (functioning as singular) a North American plant, Dicentra cucullaria, with finely divided basal leaves and pink flowers: family Fumariaceae

Word History and Origins

Origin of Dutchman's breeches¹

First recorded in 1830–40; so called from the shape of the flowers

Example Sentences

He could tell things apart that looked exactly alike to Marly—at least for a while—like Dutchman’s-breeches and squirrel com, and Solomon’s seal and twisted-stalk with their tiny bells, and violets!

From Literature

Mr. Chris said Dutchman’s-breeches had such bad fruit for cows to eat that their summer name was “little blue staggers.”

From Literature

The wind-flowers came there early, nestling under the gray rocks that sparkled with garnets; and there bloomed great bunches of Dutchman's-breeches—not the thin sprays that come in the late New England spring, but huge clumps that two men could not enclose with linked hands; great masses of scarlet and purple, and—mostly—of a waxy white, with something deathlike in their translucent beauty.

From Project Gutenberg

All around on the rocky road-side banks and in dry fields the airy wild columbine and pretty corydalis blossoms nod in every breeze, and the ravines on the hills are fringed with the softest frills of exquisite leaves and odd flowers of the Dutchman's-breeches and squirrel-corn, whitish and pinkish, and with the scent of hyacinths.

From Project Gutenberg

Here the Dutchman's-breeches grew in rich clumps.

From Project Gutenberg