wintersweet

[win-ter-sweet]

noun

1. a shrub, Chimonanthus praecox, native to China, having large leaves and fragrant yellow flowers.

Word History and Origins

Origin of wintersweet¹

First recorded in 1890–95; winter + sweet

Example Sentences

“From the 1700s. There was a town there too, a church and a mill. Nothing left but foundations, but you can still see the gardens they planted. Pippin apples and wintersweet, moss roses growing where the houses were. God knows what happened up there. An epidemic, maybe. Or a fire.”

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You might also lump the potently fragrant wintersweet into those shrubs that are nondescript garden plants but are perfect for cutting and forcing.

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If you had in your garden such hibernal bloomers as hellebores, mahonias, sweetbox, Cyclamen coum, witch hazels, edgeworthia, daphnes, camellias, violas, autumn-flowering cherry trees and wintersweet, to name a few, you would have hit the jackpot in 2020.

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When she released her first album in Mandarin, one of the songs, “Wintersweet Blossoms in Siberia,” was dedicated to the imprisoned dissident Liu Xiaobo.

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Consider planting Japanese apricot, wintersweet, winter jasmine and witch hazels.

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