flowery

American  

[flau-uh-ree] / ˈflaʊ ə ri /

adjective

flowerier, floweriest

1. covered with or having many flowers.

2. decorated with floral designs.

3. rhetorically ornate or precious.

   flowery language.

   Synonyms:

   elaborate, showy, florid

4. resembling a flower in fragrance.

   a Rhine wine with a flowery aroma.

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flowery British  

/ ˈflaʊərɪ /

adjective

1. abounding in flowers

2. decorated with flowers or floral patterns

3. like or suggestive of flowers

   a flowery scent

4. (of language or style) elaborate; ornate

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Synonym Usage

See bombastic.

Other Word Forms

• floweriness
  noun
• unflowery
  adjective
• flowerily
  adverb

Etymology

Origin of flowery

Middle English word dating back to 1300–50; see origin at flower, -y ¹

Explanation

Something flowery either looks, smells, or feels like flowers. You might wear flowery perfume or write a flowery poem starting with "Roses are red..." However, flowery is not a compliment when it comes to writing. If a blanket has a lot of pictures of flowers on it, it's flowery. If a scent reminds you of flowers, it's flowery. Flowery things make you think of flowers in some way. Also, flowery things are full of intricate details, maybe a little too full of them. A flowery speech might have many figures of speech but very little content. A flowery building design has lots of little touches and details. Flowery can mean something close to ornate.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

flowery flowerier floweriest

She once recalled wandering into a flowery field and becoming disoriented among the seemingly endless stalks and blooms—a sensation she likened to “obliteration” and would seek to re-create in her art.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026

He would begin a performance with Glass at the piano, bestowing an ingratiating quality of quiet pleasure on Ginsberg’s flowery imagery.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 21, 2026

Blume didn’t begin to try to write professionally until she was a married mother of two and some have criticized her work for not being as flowery and polished as others’.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 10, 2026

Because of this, she dressed in "soft, flowery, not particularly fashion-forward" clothes.

From BBC ● Jan. 24, 2026

She wore a dark dress, unlike the other girls in their white cotton or pastel flowery prints, so she stood out like a mourner at a wedding.

From "The Mark of Athena" by Rick Riordan

The 30-year-old took the opportunity to use “bigger, flowerier, prettier words” in her lyrics without fear of those words not tracking on pop radio.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 13, 2020

Emperor Kien Lung wrote, 200 years or more ago, for the benefit of his children, just before he left the Flowery Kingdom for a flowerier:

From The Little Tea Book by George Washington Hood

Richmond's five-year-old Virginia Museum of Fine Arts put the whole Chrysler collection on exhibition, and 989 art lovers including Richmond's floweriest socialites went to look.

From Time Magazine Archive

Then the strath opened out and we saw Ken flow silver-clear between the greenest and floweriest banks in the world.

From The Men of the Moss-Hags Being a history of adventure taken from the papers of William Gordon of Earlstoun in Galloway by S. R. (Samuel Rutherford) Crockett

"It is the airiest, floweriest, sunniest, brightest, most delightful altogether house, that ever took lodgers in!"

From The End of a Coil by Susan Warner

One can't describe the beauty of the Italian lakes, nor would one try if one could; the floweriest rhetoric can recall it only as a picture on a fireboard recalls a Claude.

From Italian Hours by Henry James

I judge the institution to have been in its floweriest state, probably now in Hakon Jarl's time.

From Early Kings of Norway by Thomas Carlyle