Log in or Sign up
  1. cinquefoil love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. Any of several plants of the genus Potentilla in the rose family, native chiefly to temperate and cold regions and having yellow or sometimes white or red flowers and compound leaves that in some species bear five leaflets.
  2. n. Architecture A design having five sides composed of converging arcs, usually used as a frame for glass or a panel.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. An ornament in the Pointed style of architecture, consisting of five cuspidated divisions. This form is frequently introduced in circular windows, bosses, rosettes, etc. See foil.
  2. n. The common name of several species of plants of the genus Potentilla, from their quinate leaves. Also called five-finger. See Potentilla.
  3. n. In heraldry, a five-leafed clover, used as a bearing. It is represented conventionally as having a round leaf at the intersection of the five stems, and also as a figure with five lobes about a small circle forming the center.
  4. n. Also spelled cinqfoil.

Wiktionary

  1. n. potentilla (flower)
  2. n. heraldry A stylized flower or leaf with five lobes.
  3. n. topology A particular knot of five crossings.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. (Bot.) The name of several different species of the genus Potentilla; -- also called five-finger, because of the resemblance of its leaves to the fingers of the hand.
  2. n. (Arch.) An ornamental foliation having five points or cups, used in windows, panels, etc.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. an ornamental carving consisting of five arcs arranged in a circle
  2. n. any of a numerous plants grown for their five-petaled flowers; abundant in temperate regions; alleged to have medicinal properties

Etymologies

  1. Middle English cinkfoil : cink, five; see cinque + foil, leaf (translation of Old French quintefeuille, from Latin quīnquefolium, translation of Greek pentaphullon); see foil2. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “Valley bottoms with stable, well-drained soils support deciduous shrubs, such as cinquefoil (Potentilla fruticosa), the legume (Caragana jubata), and willows (Salix spp).”

    Tibetan Plateau alpine shrub and meadows

  • “Cornelius Agrippa wrote on the power of numbers, which he declares is asserted by nature herself; thus the herb called cinquefoil, or five-leafed grass, resists poison, and bans devils by virtue of the number five; one leaf of it taken in wine twice a day cures the quotidian, three the tertian, four the quartan fever. [”

    Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing

  • “This part of Teesdale is famous for botanical rarities like the shrubby cinquefoil bushes, covered with egg-yolk-yellow blooms, that cling to rocky islands in the river, but the profusion of flowers maintained by skilled management of livestock in meadows and pastures has the greatest impact on most visitors.”

    The Guardian: Country diary: Forest-in-Teesdale

  • “Yellow celandine, tormentil, and cinquefoil gleam as the sun rests on them.”

    The Guardian: Country diary: Millyford Bridge, New Forest

  • “She came to hate the bitter yarrow tea they made her drink, and the smell of the poultice made of tall cinquefoil and yarrow.”

    Fictionaut: Men Don't Leave Me

  • “I recognized the scent of rosemary in the smoke, but I wasn't sure of the other two herbs; foxglove, perhaps, or cinquefoil?”

    Fictionaut: Sick Cycle Carousel

  • “Lamb's-quarters and cinquefoil were already blooming, and I could see the buds of sweet broom swelling; another week and they'd be in flower.”

    Fictionaut: Sick Cycle Carousel

  • “ The cinquefoil is red, the Mexican hat, yellow against the lush, rain-soaked meadow.”

    Fictionaut: Monsoon

  • “I saw the simple yellow cinquefoil dressed in an intricate new pattern.”

    Simon & Schuster: Wildfire

  • “Those found within Mt. Robson park include low sandwort Atenaria longipedinculata, slender Indian paintbrush Castilleja gracillima, western Indian paintbrush C. occidentalis, sulphur indian paintbrush C. sulphurea and arctic cinquefoil Potentilla hyparctica.”

    Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks, Canada

Show 10 more examples...

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

synonyms (1)

Words with the same meaning

  1. knot

hypernyms (1)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. carving

same context (23)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. dead-nettle
  2. elecampane
  3. campion
  4. caruncle
  1. trefoil
  2. sclera
  3. gilliflower
  4. harebell
  1. asafoetida
  2. hollyhock
  3. grotesques
  4. litharge
  1. speedwell
  2. lis
  3. vitivert
  4. chamomile
  1. mullein
  2. fleur-de-lis
  3. jonquil
  4. trawl
  1. loosestrife
  2. zygomatic
  3. poudre

reverse dictionary (15)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. five-finger
  2. quintefoil
  3. sinckfoile
  1. cinkefoile
  2. cinqfoil
  3. five-leaf
  1. marsh five-finger
  2. white-flowered
  3. frasier
  1. potentilla
  2. genus potentilla
  3. runner
  1. septfoil
  2. rose
  3. sexfoil

tags (5)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. flower
  1. french
  1. heraldry
  1. plant
  1. cvccvvcvvc

Log in or sign up to add your own tag.

Wordmap

(beta)

Word visualization

Lists

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

More lists containing ‘cinquefoil’

Comments

No comments yet...

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

Tweets

Looking for tweets for cinquefoil.

‘cinquefoil’ has been looked up 1849 times, loved by 3 people, added to 21 lists, and has a Scrabble score of 24.