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.
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
Roasted fruit welcomes herbs: rosemary with grapes, thyme with honeyed peaches, basil with strawberries.
From Salon ● Mar. 17, 2026
The air smelled green, the scents of peppermint, rosemary, and verbena wafting up from the ground like fog.
From "When I Was Puerto Rican" by Esmeralda Santiago
“My grandfather was a gardener. She would tell cute little stories about him,” said Rosemary Madera, Cenovia’s daughter, who traveled to the event from Montana.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2026
Maybe you have looked at the clouds and imagined a sailboat, a seahorse, or even your great-aunt Rosemary staring back at you.
From Science Daily ● May 14, 2026
Quiz collated by Rosemary McCabe and the Special Projects team.
From BBC ● May 7, 2026
He and his wife Chelsea welcomed London Rosemary Joy Freeman, with London a nod to Chelsea’s English family and Rosemary Joy Freeman as the full name of his late mother.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 21, 2026
It comes to me in a flash: Rosemary!
From "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen
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 Teixeira de Mattos, Alexander
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 Teixeira de Mattos, Alexander
Let us go every evening, step by step, from one border of tall rosemaries to the next.
From The Life of the Spider by Teixeira de Mattos, Alexander
When exposed to the full force of the sun, however, on the rosemaries in the enclosure, the balloons burst and shoot forth a ruddy flood of floss and tiny animals.
From The Life of the Spider by Teixeira de Mattos, Alexander
We inspect the stunted rosemaries along the edge of a path sheltered by a rocky, wooded slope; we lift the branches that spread over the ground.
From The Life of the Spider by Teixeira de Mattos, Alexander
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.
