Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A flower or cluster of flowers.
  • noun The condition or time of flowering.
  • noun A condition or period of maximum development. synonym: bloom.
  • intransitive verb To come into flower; bloom.
  • intransitive verb To develop; flourish.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To put forth blossoms or flowers; bloom; blow; flower: often used figuratively.
  • noun The flower of a plant, usually more or less conspicuous from the colored leaflets which form it and which are generally of more delicate texture than the leaves of the plant.
  • noun The state of flowering or bearing flowers; bloom: as, the apple-tree is in blossom.
  • noun Any person, thing, state, or condition likened to a blossom or to the bloom of a plant.
  • noun A color consisting of a white ground mingled evenly with sorrel and bay, occurring in the coats of some horses.
  • noun The outcrop of a coal-seam, usually consisting of decomposed shale mixed with coaly matter; also, sometimes, the appearance about the outcrop of any mineral lode in which oxidizable ores occur.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The flower of a plant, or the essential organs of reproduction, with their appendages; florescence; bloom; the flowers of a plant, collectively.
  • noun A blooming period or stage of development; something lovely that gives rich promise.
  • noun The color of a horse that has white hairs intermixed with sorrel and bay hairs; -- otherwise called peach color.
  • noun having the blossoms open; in bloom.
  • intransitive verb To put forth blossoms or flowers; to bloom; to blow; to flower.
  • intransitive verb To flourish and prosper; to develop into a superior type.
  • intransitive verb to appear or grow as if by blossoming; to spread out rapidly.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A flower, especially indicative of fruit as seen on a fruit tree etc.; taken collectively as the mass of such flowers.
  • noun The state or season of producing such flowers.
  • verb intransitive To have or open into blossoms; to bloom.
  • verb intransitive To begin to thrive or flourish.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb develop or come to a promising stage
  • noun the period of greatest prosperity or productivity
  • noun reproductive organ of angiosperm plants especially one having showy or colorful parts
  • verb produce or yield flowers

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English blōstm; see bhel- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English blosme, from Old English blōstm, blōstma, from Proto-Germanic *blōstama (compare West Frisian blossem, Dutch bloesem), enlargement of *blōstaz (compare German Blust), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰleh₃-s- ‘bloom, flower’ (compare Latin flōs ‘flower’, Flōra ‘goddess of plants’, Albanian bleron ("to blossom, thrive") ), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- ‘to thrive, bloom’. More at blow.

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Examples

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  • I sit in and dwell on faces past

    Like memories seem to fade

    No color left but black and white

    And soon will all turn gray

    But may these shadows rise to walk again

    With lessons truly learnt

    When the blossom flowers in each our hearts

    Shall beat a new found flame

    October 9, 2007

  • Pink as in cherry blossom pink.

    March 23, 2009