great laurel

American  

noun

1. a tall shrub, Rhododendron maximum, of eastern North America, having rose-pink flowers.

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Etymology

Origin of great laurel

An Americanism dating back to 1775–85

Example Sentences

They deposited their basket where Betty would find it, under the shadow of the great laurel in the back avenue.

From A World of Girls The Story of a School by Meade, L. T.

I have been through much—I have suffered much, but I have won two great laurel wreaths beyond thirty.

From The Lost Continent by Burroughs, Edgar Rice

Where Joan stood, the peace of the time was broken only by a gentle dripping from the leaves of a great laurel by the gate which led from the farmyard to the fields.

From Lying Prophets by Phillpotts, Eden

Forming in fours they marched up the street under great laurel trees, of such a size as Daimur had never seen anywhere before.

From The Enchanted Island by Apjohn, Fannie Louise

Among the Alleghany Mountains, from Virginia southward, the great laurel rises to a height of forty feet, and interlaces its boughs with those of Fraser's magnolia and the mountain hemlock in the dense forest cover.

From Trees Worth Knowing by Rogers, Julia Ellen