flower
Americannoun
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the blossom of a plant.
She picked a bunch of flowers for her mother.
He always wore a flower in his lapel, usually a carnation.
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Botany.
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the part of a seed plant comprising the reproductive organs and their envelopes if any, especially when such envelopes are more or less conspicuous in form and color.
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an analogous reproductive structure in other plants, as the mosses.
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a plant considered with reference to its blossom or cultivated for its floral beauty.
If it doesn’t rain today, I’ll need to water the flowers in the garden.
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an ornament or decoration representing a flower.
She doesn’t like any fabric that has flowers on it.
The classroom walls were decorated with cheery flowers painted by the children.
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an ornament or adornment.
I felt like I was being told to be just a flower, but I wanted to have input and share my ideas.
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Also called fleuron, floret. Printing. an ornamental piece of type, especially a stylized floral design, often used in a line to decorate chapter headings, page borders, or bindings.
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the choicest or finest part, member, or example.
Emigration took the flower of the nation’s youth, desperate for a better life.
It was a love poem, calling her “the flower of humanity” and other romantic epithets.
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the bud of the cannabis or hemp plant, or such buds collectively, secreting over 100 different cannabinoids.
For testing purposes, you only need to bring in one cannabis flower for analysis.
This is high-quality cannabis flower, with 12 to 18 percent THC.
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(used with a singular verb) flowers, a substance in the form of a fine powder, especially as obtained by sublimation.
flowers of sulfur.
verb (used without object)
verb (used with object)
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to decorate with a floral design.
The skirt of the dress is flowered.
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to cover or deck with flowers.
For the wedding photos, they flowered the church steps with roses.
idioms
noun
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a bloom or blossom on a plant
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a plant that bears blooms or blossoms
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the reproductive structure of angiosperm plants, consisting normally of stamens and carpels surrounded by petals and sepals all borne on the receptacle (one or more of these structures may be absent). In some plants it is conspicuous and brightly coloured and attracts insects or other animals for pollination
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any similar reproductive structure in other plants
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the prime; peak
in the flower of his youth
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the choice or finest product, part, or representative
the flower of the young men
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a decoration or embellishment
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printing a type ornament, used with others in borders, chapter headings, etc
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Also called: fleuron. an embellishment or ornamental symbol depicting a flower
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(plural) fine powder, usually produced by sublimation
flowers of sulphur
verb
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(intr) to produce flowers; bloom
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(intr) to reach full growth or maturity
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(tr) to deck or decorate with flowers or floral designs
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The reproductive structure of the seed-bearing plants known as angiosperms. A flower may contain up to four whorls or arrangements of parts: carpels, stamens, petals, and sepals. The female reproductive organs consist of one or more carpels. Each carpel includes an ovary, style, and stigma. A single carpel or a group of fused carpels is sometimes called a pistil. The male reproductive parts are the stamens, made up of a filament and anther. The reproductive organs may be enclosed in an inner whorl of petals and an outer whorl of sepals. Flowers first appeared over 120 million years ago and have evolved a great diversity of forms and coloration in response to the agents that pollinate them. Some flowers produce nectar to attract animal pollinators, and these flowers are often highly adapted to specific groups of pollinators. Flowers pollinated by moths, such as species of jasmine and nicotiana, are often pale and fragrant in order to be found in the evening, while those pollinated by birds, such as fuschias, are frequently red and odorless, since birds have good vision but a less developed sense of smell. Wind-pollinated flowers, such as those of oak trees or grass, are usually drab and inconspicuous.
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See Note at pollination
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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flowersimple
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flowerssimple
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have floweredperfect
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has floweredperfect
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am floweringprogressive
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are floweringprogressive
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is floweringprogressive
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have been floweringperfect progressive
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has been floweringperfect progressive
Past
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floweredsimple
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had floweredperfect
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was floweringprogressive
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were floweringprogressive
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had been floweringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of flower
First recorded in 1150–1200; Middle English flour “flower, best of anything,” from Old French flor, flour, flur, from Latin flōr-, stem of flōs; see also bloom 1 ( def. ), flour
Explanation
If someone tells you they think you'll flower when you go to college, they don't mean they think you'll grow blossoms on your head, but that you'll really come into your own and find your potential. A flower is a fragile blossom that has petals and grows at the top of the stem of a plant. Flowers attract bees, who help out with the pollination process so more plants can grow. Roses, daisies, and carnations are all types of flowers. Flower is also a verb meaning to bring forth flowers. And if something besides a plant — a business, a person, a community — has a period of extra productivity or prosperity, we say it is flowering.
Vocabulary lists containing flower
Plants (Botany) - Introduction
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Plants (Botany) - Middle School
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Plants (Botany) - High School
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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.
See Examples For:
On the same Saturday of Abdul El-Sayed’s rally in Detroit, I met Haley Stevens at a campaign event in a small, Black-owned flower shop.
From Slate ● Jul. 30, 2026
This, of course, is a disaster for both flower and the bees.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 29, 2026
Every flower was talented and convinced it could win.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 29, 2026
The spokesperson added the intricate flower beds and pathways of the Great Parterre disappeared beneath a new landscape in the 1730s in changes introduced by William Cavendish, the third Duke of Devonshire.
From BBC ● Jul. 20, 2026
Grinning, I tried to picture her with an aviator hat and imagined her still wearing her ginormous flower poking out the side.
From "Sir Fig Newton and the Science of Persistence" by Sonja Thomas
That’s before he gets to the movie star sending him flowers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 30, 2026
They could come out of hibernation too early and not have any nectar to feed on, or conversely the flowers could come out before the bees appear.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 29, 2026
A lab-raised monkey, born without a fear of snakes, can be taught to fear them—but not to fear flowers, a difference that suggests an inherited readiness to learn a survival strategy.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
She gives him lotus flowers to dull his pain, but as he keeps eating them, his memories and sense of identity begin to fade.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
Herbs and plants and flowers hung from the ceiling.
From "Rump: The (Fairly) True Story of Rumpelstilskin" by Liesl Shurtliff
A veil rested on their heads, held by a satin flowered headband.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 27, 2026
The RHS, in partnership with the conservation charity Plant Heritage, are also looking for two other rare daffodils - the white double flowered 'Mrs William Copeland' and orange and yellow double flower 'Sussex Bonfire'.
From BBC ● Mar. 5, 2026
Each generation of banana plants had to grow for at least 12 months before researchers could test them for disease resistance and continue breeding once they flowered.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 19, 2026
Still, at the time of the January fires, the semi-deciduous trees had not yet flowered, which likely minimized the damage they suffered.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 24, 2025
There were Paderewski, Houdini, Tesla, Edison, Joplin, Darrow, a Princeton professor named Woodrow Wilson, and a sweet old lady in black summer silk flowered with forget-me-not-blue named Susan B. Anthony.
From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson
Essentially they are flowering at a time of year when the bees aren’t there.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 29, 2026
The abrasive texture of shark skin repels barnacles and has inspired antimicrobial surface coatings for hospitals; the seeds of a flowering plant offer clues to the designers of probes destined for other worlds.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
"Seagrasses are the only marine flowering plants," he explains as we slowly work our way through the seagrass meadow.
From BBC ● Jul. 20, 2026
Though many refer to these plants as “flowers,” they are actually an “inflorescence,” a flowering structure containing hundreds of smaller blooms inside.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 10, 2026
The front of the house sat smack on the ground with flowering shrubs nestled right up against it.
From "Wish" by Barbara O'Connor
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.
