Jump To:

• heather
  heather

  noun

  any of various heaths, especially Calluna vulgaris, of England and Scotland, having small, pinkish-purple flowers.
• Heather
  Heather

  noun

  a female given name.

heather

¹ American  

[heth-er] / ˈhɛð ər /

noun

1. any of various heaths, especially Calluna vulgaris, of England and Scotland, having small, pinkish-purple flowers.

---

adjective

1. (of a yarn or fabric color) subtly flecked or mottled.

   all-cotton turtlenecks in your choice of five solid colors plus heather gray and heather green.

Heather ² American  

[heth-er] / ˈhɛð ər /

noun

1. a female given name.

---

heather British  

/ ˈhɛðə /

noun

1. Also called: ling, heath. a low-growing evergreen Eurasian ericaceous shrub, Calluna vulgaris, that grows in dense masses on open ground and has clusters of small bell-shaped typically pinkish-purple flowers

2. any of certain similar plants

3. a purplish-red to pinkish-purple colour

---

adjective

1. of a heather colour

2. of or relating to interwoven yarns of mixed colours

   heather mixture

Other Word Forms

• heathered
  adjective
• heathery
  adjective

---

Etymology

Origin of heather

1300–50; spelling variant of hether, earlier hedder, hadder, hather, Middle English hathir; akin to heath

---

Explanation

Heather is a hearty flowering plant that's common in many parts of the world but most famous for growing in the Scottish Highlands. Heather grows in low, dense mats, often in soil that's wet, acidic, or otherwise inhospitable. In Scotland, millions of acres are carpeted in colorful heather, and the country is closely associated with the plant. The Old English root of heather is hæddre, and the word was mainly used in Scots until the 16th century. As a girl's name, Heather was extremely rare until the 1930s, and its popularity exploded in the 1970s and 80s.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

heather Heather

It covered about six square kilometres of heather and small trees at its height, with more than 500 firefighters tackling it.

From BBC ● Jul. 25, 2026

One imagines not the ghost of Cathy or Heathcliff, but a trio of women, very much alive and striding through the heather, their minds alight with the stories they would tell, set among similar terrain.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 14, 2026

The law in Northern Ireland states that the burning of vegetation such as heather, gorse, whin or fern may only be carried out between 1 September and 14 April.

From BBC ● May 2, 2026

Only decades ago many of the cottages in Scotland’s Highlands were roofed in heather, bracken and marram grass.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 14, 2025

“Blackavar, do you know that earlier this summer, before we had the benefit of your experience, we went for days across every kind of country—fields, heather, woods, downs—and never lost one rabbit?”

From "Watership Down: A Novel" by Richard Adams

"None of these things can be taken in a vacuum," NDP Member of Parliament Heather McPherson told AFP.

From Barron's ● Oct. 16, 2026

Heidi Ann Burge was born six minutes after her twin sister, Heather Marie, on Nov. 12, 1971, in Harbor City.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 16, 2026

“Whenever I saw the Muse avatar, I could only think of a child’s toy,” Heather Turner, an associate chair and professor in the department of English at Santa Clara University, told me.

From Slate ● Oct. 14, 2026

“The stock market is increasingly the economy,” said Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 13, 2026

Imani and I look at each other briefly, nod, then tell Heather everything.

From "Blended" by Sharon M. Draper

Random Word

Spin the wheel and learn a new word!

---

Related Words

• drab
• dusty
• silvery

---