Log in or Sign up
  1. borage love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. An annual, bristly European herb (Borago officinalis) having blue or purplish star-shaped flowers.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A European plant, Borago officinalis, the principal representative of the genus, occasionally cultivated for its blue flowers. It is sometimes used as a salad, occasionally in medicine in acute fevers, etc., and also in making claret-cup, cool-tankard, etc.

Wiktionary

  1. n. herb a Mediterranean plant with oval leaves, used in salads.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. (Bot.) A mucilaginous plant of the genus Borago (B. officinalis), which is used, esp. in France, as a demulcent and diaphoretic.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. hairy blue-flowered European annual herb long used in herbal medicine and eaten raw as salad greens or cooked like spinach
  2. n. an herb whose leaves are used to flavor sauces and punches; young leaves can be eaten in salads or cooked

Etymologies

  1. From Old French borage (compare French bourrache), from Medieval Latin borrago, either from Latin borra ("short wool, rough hair") or Arabic الأب من العرق ("abu arak, lit. father of sweat"). (Wiktionary)
  2. Middle English, from Old French bourage, from Medieval Latin borāgō, probably from Arabic bū'araq, from 'abū 'araq, source of sweat (from its use as a sudorific) : 'ab, father, source; see אb in Semitic roots + 'araq, sweat; see ʿrq in Semitic roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “Regarding cow tongue flower, better known as borage by normal people, today I learned from Nigella Lawson's Forever Summer, that the fresh flowers are often used in Pimms, the classic British summer cocktail.”

    things i've learned today

  • “He told me, first of all, that I should not buy cow tongue flower I learned later that the English name is 'borage' teabags, but rather that I have to get the actual loose petals, or else it won't work.”

    Archive 2006-07-01

  • “The decision by farmers to profit from high wheat prices by increasing arable production has been at the expense of crops such as borage, used in pharmaceutical manufacturing and a prolific source of nectar for bees.”

    Belfasttelegraph.co.uk - Frontpage RSS Feed

  • “Here you can find flavours that use Fortnum's own produce for ingredients; like stem ginger and borage honey.”

    The Guardian: Ten of the best UK ice-cream sellers

  • “Bonus: Poppy has just opened a tiny backyard patio, with a few small tables outdoors by the pretty and practical kitchen garden of flowering sage and borage and young stems of lovage.”

    Best New Restaurants and backyard garden

  • “Ashley Palmer-Watts Roast scallops with cucumber ketchup and borage at Heston Blumenthal's Dinner restaurant in London.”

    The Wall Street Journal: Culinary Reflections

  • “The flowers added a synergy between the fish and vegetables—borage, for example, tastes like oyster and cucumber.”

    The Wall Street Journal: Best of the Food Fest

  • “Pink pieces of tuna belly lined the plate like petits fours, adorned with bright blue borage flowers and beaming yellow cucumber blossoms.”

    The Wall Street Journal: Best of the Food Fest

  • “I don't like to drink too much at these food events, but I could not resist Josh Goldman's Pimm's Cup from ink Restaurant, made with gin, sweet vermouth, Triple Sec, orange bitters and Peychaud's bitters; he combined it with fresh lemonade and garnished it with cucumber, mnt, borage, freeze-dried apples and strawberries.”

    The Huffington Post: Jay Weston: Share Our Strength Fights Childhood Hunger at Taste of Nation

  • “Preboggin may refer to weeds of the Boraginaceae family, including borage, which often have hairy leaves.”

    The Wall Street Journal: Week in Words

Show 10 more examples...

Log in or sign up to add your own related words.

hypernyms (2)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. herbaceous plant
  1. Herb

same context (21)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. oregano
  2. calamint
  3. southernwood
  4. horehound
  1. lovastatin
  2. coriander
  3. burnet
  4. fennel
  1. marjoram
  2. snowdrop
  3. primrose
  4. caraway
  1. chamomile
  2. cowslip
  3. spearmint
  4. stigmasterol
  1. thiamine
  2. buttercup
  3. paprika
  4. endive
  1. linolenic

reverse dictionary (24)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. borrage
  2. ceylon borage
  3. borago
  4. burrage
  1. burridge
  2. cool-tankard
  3. granny-bush
  4. guayavi
  1. kou
  2. nutlet
  3. boragewort
  4. boraginaceous
  1. boragineous
  2. claret-cup
  3. knackaway
  4. stick-seed
  1. wild comfrey
  2. beebread
  3. madwort
  4. auhi
  1. banago
  2. ikoik
  3. nigua
  4. palo-maria

tags (2)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. herb
  1. plant

Log in or sign up to add your own tag.

Wordmap

(beta)

Word visualization

Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘borage’.

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • yarb     Magnus Bede carried his son straight to the laboratory. "Is your original potion still here?" he asked.
        Yorick showed him the flask and everything he'd put in it: borage, betony, camphor, and sauerkraut.

    - William Steig, The Toy Brother Sep 14, 2008

Tweets

Looking for tweets for borage.

‘borage’ has been looked up 1640 times, added to 16 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 9.