bloom

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“
And their bloom was a ghastly pallor, and their smile was a ghastly frown,

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Definitions (48)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (21)

  1. noun The flower of a plant.
  2. noun Something resembling the flower of a plant: "Her hair was caught all to one side in a great bloom of frizz” (Anne Tyler).
  3. noun The condition of being in flower: a rose in full bloom.
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Examples (50)

  • Tennyson speaks of “Native hazels tassel-hung.” The female bloom, which is the immediate precursor of the nut itself, is a pretty little pink star, which can be found on the same branch as the catkin but is much less conspicuous; and both are a very welcome sight, as almost the earliest hint of spring. —  Grain and Chaff from an English Manor
  • 'Twas a trifle juvenile for his looks, but I blame him not; for my Lady Townshend would choose for him, though he protested that, however young he might be in spirits, his bloom was a little past. —  The Ladies
  • If the earlier blooming was from natural variability, there would have been years when the bloom was a bit later, and the average bloom date over a decade would have stayed about the same. —  RealClimate
  • She will also talk about the iconic Saguaro and its bloom, which is our state flower. —  DesertUSA News
  • The daffodil lured into bloom is tossed by the cold currents of reality like some dreaming immigrant seduced in her new land and abandoned.
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

blossom ·  rose ·  bud ·  hue ·  foliage ·  fragrance ·  sunshine ·  petal ·  wreath ·  sweetness ·  beauty ·  shrub

Used in the same contextWord Family

bloom:   blooms ·  bloomed ·  blooming
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (5)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. Middle English blom, from Old Norse blōm; see bhel-3 in Indo-European roots.
  2. Middle English blome, lump of metal, from Old English blōma; see bhel-3 in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (3)

  1. = Scots blume; early modern English bloome, blome, bloume; from Middle English blom, blome, from Anglo-Saxon *blōma, a blossom (not found in this sense, for which reg. blōstma, blōstm (see blossom), but prob. the original of which blōma, a mass of iron (later English bloom), is a deflected sense; the Middle English may be in part from the Scandinavian) (= Old Saxon blōmo = late OFries. blæm, blam, NFries. blomme = Middle Dutch bloeme, Dutch bloem, feminine, = Middle Low German blōme = Old High German bluomo, masculine, bluoma, feminine, Middle High German bluome, masculine, feminine, German blume, feminine, = Icelandic blōmi, masculine, blōm, neuter, = Norwegian blom = Swedish blomma, feminine, = Danish blomme = Gothic (Moesogothic) blōma, masculine, a flower), with formative -m (orig. *-man), from blōwan, etc., English blow, bloom, whence also blēd, blǣd, later Middle English blede (= Middle Low German blōt = Old High German Middle High German bluot, Middle High German plural blüete, German blüte), a flower, blossom, fruit, and Anglo-Saxon blōstma, blōstm, later English blossom, and perhaps Anglo-Saxon blōd, English blood; also from the same ult. root, Latin flōs (flōr-), later ult. English flower, flour: see these words.
  2. from Middle English blomen (= Middle Low German blomen = Norwegian bloma, blöma), bloom; from the noun.
  3. Not found in Middle English, but in late Anglo-Saxon; from Anglo-Saxon blōma, a bloom of metal (glossed massa or metallum; cf. blōma oththe dāh, ‘bloom or dough’ (of metal); īsenes blōma, a bloom of iron; gold-blōma, literally ‘gold-bloom,’ applied once (as elsewhere gold-hord, ‘gold-hoard,’ ‘treasure’) figuratively to Christ as incarnated); not found in other languages in this sense, and prob. a particular use of blōma, a flower, which is not found in Anglo-Saxon in that sense: see bloom. The reference may have been to the glowing mass of metal as taken from the furnace; but this sense as recorded is only recent.
 

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