First recorded in 1830–40; so called from the shape of the flowers
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Norway maple is an invasive plant that has escaped from cultivation to displace sugar maple and shade to death spring wildflowers such as Dutchman’s breeches, dog-tooth violet and mayapple.
From Washington Times ● Oct. 8, 2019
The plumy dicentra, or Dutchman’s breeches, seems so feminine as to be grossly misnamed until we remember that it was first discovered in the Rip Van Winkle country.
From Some Spring Days in Iowa by Lazell, Frederick John
The purple trilliums, like the Dutchman’s breeches, felt the effects of the many April and early May frosts but now they are coming into their beauty.
From Some Spring Days in Iowa by Lazell, Frederick John
The following are common in most parts of Ontario: squirrel-corn, Dutchman's breeches, blue cohosh, dog's-tooth violet, water-parsnip, catnip, and mallow.
From Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study by Ontario. Ministry of Education
Some of them, such as the Dutchman's breeches and the bluebell, have gone, like the beautiful children who died when life was young.
From Some Summer Days in Iowa by Lazell, Frederick John
Mr. Chris said Dutchman’s-breeches had such bad fruit for cows to eat that their summer name was “little blue staggers.”
From "Miracles on Maple Hill" by Virginia Sorensen
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 "Miracles on Maple Hill" by Virginia Sorensen
Her sisters bring the gifts—Spring, wind-flowers, Solomon's-Seal, Dutchman's-breeches, Quaker-ladies, and trailing arbutus, that smells as divinely as the true May.
From Letters of Travel (1892-1913) by Kipling, Rudyard
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.
