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• mayflower
  mayflower

  noun

  any of various plants that blossom in May, such as the hepatica or anemone in the United States, and the hawthorn or cowslip in England.
• Mayflower
  Mayflower

  noun

  the ship in which the Pilgrim Fathers sailed from Plymouth to Massachusetts in 1620

mayflower

American  

[mey-flou-er] / ˈmeɪˌflaʊ ər /

noun

• mayflowers
  plural

1. any of various plants that blossom in May, such as the hepatica or anemone in the United States, and the hawthorn or cowslip in England.

2. trailing arbutus.

3. Mayflower, the ship in which the Pilgrims sailed from Southampton, England, to North America in 1620.

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Mayflower ¹ British  

/ ˈmeɪˌflaʊə /

noun

1. the ship in which the Pilgrim Fathers sailed from Plymouth to Massachusetts in 1620

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mayflower ² British  

/ ˈmeɪˌflaʊə /

noun

1. any of various plants that bloom in May

2. another name for trailing arbutus

3. another name for hawthorn cowslip marsh marigold

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Mayflower Cultural  

1. The ship that carried the Pilgrims to America. It made a permanent landing near Plymouth Rock in 1620, after the Pilgrims had agreed to the Mayflower Compact.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• mayflowers
  plural

Etymology

Origin of mayflower

First recorded in 1560–70; May + flower

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

mayflower Mayflower mayflowers

“Epigea” refers to Epigaea repens, commonly known as trailing arbutus or mayflower: a low-growing shrub that produces clusters of pink flowers.

From Slate ● May 17, 2016

The delicate and fragrant blossoms of the mayflower made the wooded hillsides sweet, and birds were singing and building their nests in the mild breezes, under the cloud-flecked sky.

From The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 From Discovery of America October 12, 1492 to Battle of Lexington April 19, 1775 by Julian Hawthorne

I've looked on the mayflower, spring's earliest child,— It peeped from the snowdrift and modestly smiled; I've plucked the fair lily, arrayed in fair white, And drank in its fragrance with heartfelt delight.

From The Snow-Drop by Sarah S. Mower

"When the mayflower goes, the rose blooms," said Constance.

From A Pilgrim Maid A Story of Plymouth Colony in 1620 by Marion Ames Taggart

The specimen illustrated shows some of these "jours" having the characteristic mayflower, lozenge, and dotted patterns.

From Chats on Old Lace and Needlework by Emily Leigh Lowes

“It’s the talk of the town,” says portfolio manager and financial adviser Larry Glazer, managing partner of Mayflower Advisors in Boston.

From MarketWatch ● May 27, 2026

“We used to be in a world where we built really expensive, heavy hardware and it was like waving goodbye to the Mayflower when it launched,” said the Army’s Evans.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 16, 2026

The Mayflower Compact quarter includes a woman on the front.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 11, 2025

In Lillie’s second mystery, tensions rise between Rhode Island’s Narragansett tribe and the Founders Society’s Mayflower descendants after 300-year-old sacred remains are unearthed, then vanish from a Society campground.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 2, 2025

Just before the 1620 landing of the Mayflower, smallpox had spread from English trading ships to the Pequot fishing and farming communities.

From "An Indigenous People’s History of the United States" by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

The two met at an audition for a community theater production in Southern California, and Nixon proposed two years later, delivering her engagement ring in a basket filled with mayflowers.

From Time ● Mar. 13, 2012

The spring seeking motorist finds his first mayflowers there as the grade leads up Manomet heights and may expect them by the roadside anywhere, after that.

From Old Plymouth Trails by Winthrop Packard

A light rain had been falling all day—a little, delicate, beautiful spring rain, that somehow seemed to hint and whisper of mayflowers and wakening violets.

From Rainbow Valley by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery

Just went wild over these Berkshire Hills, this spring, over his first sight of mayflowers!

From Pemrose Lorry, Camp Fire Girl by Isabel Katherine Hornibrook

“Git mayflowers in a place you don’t know,” said the boy.

From The Heart's Country by Mary Heaton Vorse