Definitions

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

  • noun Either of two related trailing plants, Veronica americana of North America or V. beccabunga of Eurasia, growing in wet or moist places and having clusters of small blue or purplish flowers.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A plant, Veronica Beccabunga, with blue flowers in loose lateral spikes. See Veronica.

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

  • noun (Bot.) A plant (Veronica Beccabunga), with flowers, usually blue, in axillary racemes. The American species is Veronica Americana.

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

  • noun A plant (Veronica beccabunga) with usually blue flowers in axillary racemes.

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

  • noun European plant having low-lying stems with blue flowers; sparsely naturalized in North America
  • noun plant of western North America and northeastern Asia having prostrate stems with dense racemes of pale violet to lilac flowers

Etymologies

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

[Alteration of Middle English brokelemok : broke, brook; see brook + lemok, a kind of brooklime (from Old English hleomoc).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

brook +‎ lime?

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Examples

  • Bullrushes and brooklime are also good, but the bullrushes must be planted judiciously.

    Amateur Fish Culture Charles Edward Walker

  • At the base of the rocks, where there was still some moisture, were the blue flowers of the brooklime veronica, and the brighter blue of the forget-me-not.

    Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine Edward Harrison Barker 1885

  • He went round the intervening swamp of watercress and brooklime which had once been the fish-pond, crossed by a culvert the trickling brook that still flowed that way, and advanced to the wall of the house.

    The Trumpet-Major Thomas Hardy 1884

  • Ebulus_, but this seems most unlikely. -- 265 [_unlabeled, 1 on next page_] BROKELEMPK = brooklime.

    Early English Meals and Manners Frederick James Furnivall 1867

  • The blue flower of the brooklime is not seen here; you must look for it where the springs break forth, where its foliage sometimes quite conceals the tiny rill.

    Round About a Great Estate Richard Jefferies 1867

  • The furrows run to the ditch under the reeds, the ditch declines to a little streamlet which winds all hidden by willowherb and rush and flag, a mere trickle of water under brooklime, away at the feet of the corn.

    Nature Near London Richard Jefferies 1867

  • But the ditches below are yet green with brooklime and rushes.

    Nature Near London Richard Jefferies 1867

  • _Hleomoce_, _Hleomoc_, brooklime (where lime is the Saxon name (_Hleomoc_) in decay), _Veronica beccabunga_, with

    Early English Meals and Manners Frederick James Furnivall 1867

  • Beneath it went under thickest brooklime, blue flowered, and serrated water-parsnips, lost like many a mighty river for awhile among a forest of leaves.

    The Life of the Fields Richard Jefferies 1867

  • The very sun of Spain burns and burns and ripens the wheat on the edge of the coombe, and will only let the spring moisten a yard or two around it; but there a few rushes have sprung, and in the water itself brooklime with blue flowers grows so thickly that nothing but a bird could find space to drink.

    The Life of the Fields Richard Jefferies 1867

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