First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English rose mary (by folk etymology, influenced by rose 1 and the name Mary ), from Latin rōs “dew” + marīnus “marine,” or rōs maris “dew of the sea” (in English the final -s mistaken for plural sign)
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The “charcoal forest room” includes hanging bags of dried mugwort from Korea that smell similar to rosemary.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 20, 2026
He grows about 60 different crops, including herbs such as rosemary and thyme, heirloom tomatoes and cucumbers, and pick-your-own strawberries and flowers.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 2, 2026
I joyfully practice “urban foraging,” picking blackberries in the Presidio, collecting rosemary and ginkgo nuts under street trees, harvesting apples at the invitation of the trees’ vacationing owners.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 2, 2026
Options already exist for fixing dyes without lead, including natural mordants derived from plants rich in tannins, such as oak bark, pomegranate peel and rosemary, as well as alum, which is considered environmentally safe.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 2, 2026
She point to the back of the rosemary.
From "Girls Like Us" by Gail Giles
Parent Rosemary Randall, who has four children, said the charity had "massively supported" her family.
From BBC ● Aug. 24, 2026
Before Washington's call, Rosemary Di Carlo, the UN's Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, warned a "worrying aspect of the conflict in Sudan is its increasing complexity."
From Barron's ● Aug. 24, 2026
Rosemary and Peter Grant, a married pair of evolutionary biologists who studied songbirds on Daphne Major, a small volcanic island in the Galápagos archipelago, are the subjects of Jonathan Weiner’s “The Beak of the Finch.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 24, 2026
Fedorenko's group found a way around that obstacle by working with Rosemary Varley, a neuroscientist at University College London who studies acquired language disorders, and her team.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 11, 2026
When Rosemary comes to park me in the hallway, I ask her to take me to the window so I can watch the goings-on at the park.
From "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen
I rear some young Philanthus-grubs, already waxing large; but, instead of supplying them with the prey taken from the burrows, I give them game of my own catching, game replete with nectar from the rosemaries.
From More Hunting Wasps by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
The Banded and the Silky Epeira, both of whom live on the rosemaries in the enclosure, shall show us in broad daylight the innermost details of the tragedy.
From The Wonders of Instinct Chapters in the Psychology of Insects by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
One half remained in my study, under a wire-gauze cover, with, small bunches of brushwood as supports; the other half were experiencing the vicissitudes of open-air life on the rosemaries in the enclosure.
From The Life of the Spider by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
The Banded and the Silky Epeira, both of whom live on the rosemaries in the enclosure, shall show us in broad day-light the innermost details of the tragedy.
From The Life of the Spider by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
I know, from my past excavations, the points favoured by the grub: the mounds of sand heaped up by the wind at the foot of the rosemaries on the neighbouring hill-sides.
From More Hunting Wasps by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
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.
