sunflower
Americannoun
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sunflowers
plural
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any of various composite plants of the genus Helianthus, as H. annuus, having showy, yellow-rayed flower heads often 12 inches (30 centimeters) wide, and edible seeds that yield an oil with a wide variety of uses: the state flower of Kansas.
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Also called aster. Furniture. a conventionalized flower motif carved in the center panels of a Connecticut chest.
noun
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any of several American plants of the genus Helianthus, esp H. annuus, having very tall thick stems, large flower heads with yellow rays, and seeds used as food, esp for poultry: family Asteraceae (composites) See also Jerusalem artichoke
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the oil extracted from sunflower seeds, used as a salad oil, in the manufacture of margarine, etc
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of sunflower
First recorded in 1555–65; translation of Latin flōs sōlis “flower of the sun”
Vocabulary lists containing sunflower
Non-Color Words to Use When Describing Color
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Example Sentences
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See Examples For:
Ukraine, which is a major exporter of corn, wheat, colza, sunflower seeds and vegetable oil, submitted its EU membership bid days after Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022.
From Barron's ● Oct. 7, 2026
Winterich kept otherwise ordinary gifts — including a sunflower mug chosen because her mother knew yellow was her favorite color, because her mother would never give her another one.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 29, 2026
“I was almost like a sunflower, constantly facing and chasing actor Jeon.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 6, 2026
Since then, it has maintained exports of grain and sunflower oil and kept its beach resorts functioning.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 19, 2026
Even Pixie's furry sunflower bag was from a world where nothing ugly's allowed.
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
A field of unharvested sunflowers had attracted mixed flocks of birds, especially goldfinches and bramblings, before they were startled into the air by a sparrowhawk.
From BBC ● Oct. 13, 2026
Even more surprising were the endless fields of corn, rapeseed and sunflowers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 7, 2026
The footage merges in the middle and then morphs into video of other natural wonders from Monet’s garden — sunflowers, pink asters, golden marigolds and more, forming an ever-shifting landscape.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 27, 2026
And so the same peloton will be hurtling along the cobbles a couple of months before gliding through the sunflowers of a French summer.
From BBC ● Apr. 13, 2026
He also tells her of a gift from Paul Gauguin: the portrait he’d made of Vincent painting sunflowers.
From "Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers" by Deborah Heiligman
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