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 best was when Madam told us to hang dried rosemary throughout; that cut right through the lingering stench of boots and belchings.
From "Chains" by Laurie Halse Anderson
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
“That’s so sweet,” Rosemary said in response, , as Chris and Jennifer’s phones blew up with texts telling them about the panel.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 4, 2026
“Come on now,” the real nurse coaxed Rosemary like you'd coax a scared horse.
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
“Before we divide, Let us dip our rosemaries In one rich bowl of wine, to this brave girl And to the gentleman.”
From An Orkney Maid by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
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
While the new inhabitants are twisting their ropes on the rosemaries in the enclosure, one evening, by the last gleams of twilight, I discover a splendid Spider, with a mighty belly, just outside my door.
From The Life of the Spider by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
Let us go every evening, step by step, from one border of tall rosemaries to the next.
From The Life of the Spider 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
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.
