Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A tree (Cornus florida) of eastern North America, having small greenish flowers surrounded by four large, showy white or pink bracts that resemble petals.
- n. Any of several trees or shrubs of the genus Cornus.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A tree of the genus Cornus; the cornel; especially, in Europe, the wild or male cornel, C. sanguinea. Also called dogwood-tree. In the United States some of the species are familiar, as the flowering dogwood, C. florida, a highly ornamental tree, of moderate size, covered in May or early June with a profusion of large white or pale-pink flowers; the Californian dogwood, C. Nuttallii; the swamp-dogwood, C. sericea; and the dwarf dogwood, C. Canadensis. See
Cornus . - n. The wood of trees of the genus Cornus. Dogwood is so exceptionally free from silex that watchmakers use small splinters of it for cleaning out the pivot-holes of watches, and opticians for removing dust from small deep-seated lenses.
- n. Any cornel-like shrub so called, as in England the Euonymus Europœus. The black dogwood of Europe is Rhamnus Frangula and Prunus Padus, and of the West Indies, Piscidia Carthaginensis; false or striped dogwood, Acer Pennsylvanicum; Jamaica or white dogwood, Piscidia Erythrina; poison dogwood, Rhus venenata; pond-dogwood, Cephalanthus occidentalis; and the white dogwood of England, Viburnum Opulus. The Tasmanian dogwood, Bedfordia salicina, of the natural order Compositœ, has a beautifully marked wood, used in cabinet-work. The dogwood of Australia, Jacksonia scoparia, a leguminous shrub, has a disagreeable odor when burning.
- n. Pomaderris apetala, a small rhamnaceous tree of Tasmania, yielding a beautiful satiny wood suitable for carving and turning. See Pomaderris.
- n. The poison sumac, Rhus Vernix.
- n. The hop-tree, Ptelea trifoliata.
- n. Same as Jamaica *dogwood.
Wiktionary
- n. Any of various small trees of the genus Cornus, especially the wild cornel and the flowering cornel
- n. The wood of such trees and shrubs.
- n. A wood or tree similar to this genus, used in different parts of the world.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Bot.) The Cornus, a genus of large shrubs or small trees, the wood of which is exceedingly hard, and serviceable for many purposes.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a tree of shrub of the genus Cornus often having showy bracts resembling flowers
- n. hard tough wood of any dogwood of the genus Cornus; resembles boxwood
Etymologies
- From dag, a sharp object, + wood. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“In fact, the dogwood is a poignant reminder of the hundred-year gap between the first and second incarnations of this garden.”
“The man sitting alone in the shade of a small dogwood is equally unaware.”
“Our dogwood is filled with white blossoms though, and I know the geese will be laying eggs.”
“Actually, I thought it was a dogwood from the flowers, but only recalled seeing them before some 30 yrs ago, while growing up here in the Pacific Northwest.”
“There are stately pine forests extending along the centre of the island; but the most beautiful of its trees are what are commonly called dogwood, the laurel, and a delicate species of the white oak.”
“The berry of the round-leaved dogwood is of a very delicate blue.”
“Carolyn Gail, thanks, I also thought the dogwood was our tree, but was corrected and now know it is the tulip poplar.”
“The dogwood is a seedling from our first Tennessee house, one of several herethat are now flowering size.”
“When "the leaf of the dogwood is the size of a squirrel's ear," it is planting time.”
“The mosses and the lichens have proceeded far enough in their work of disintegration to provide substance for the slender red stem of dogwood, which is growing out of the soil they have made.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘dogwood’.
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Love Across Kingdoms
Appendix of sorts to AIC, listing plants named with reference to animals and vice versa.
duck potato, hog plum, sorrel mare, horse aloe, horse chestnut, banana slug, tiger lily, buffalo grass, tuna fruit, monkey puzzle, bull kelp, hawkweed and 133 more...
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♥
ambrosia, inamorata, gossamer, lily-white, hummingbird, roucoulement, poppy, daisy, calypso, lunula, lamb, dove and 1526 more...
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Amalgamations
Words that have been smashed together.
keystone, touchstone, footprint, thunderhead, seesaw, textbook, leftovers, watchword, afterbirth, fieldwork, outcast, statesman and 148 more...
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Trees!
mahogany, sequoia, balsa, sandalwood, tamarind, balsam, eucalyptus, birch, willow, buttonwood, evergreen, loblolly and 501 more...
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That's right, another list
muck-a-muck, ipse dixit, solipsism, anticlinal, analogical, amoral, alogical, synclinal, disinclined, iconological, studly, flitch and 179 more...
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Dain's Words
rabble, terminus, archaic, atavism, demiurge, waylay, syzygy, jocoserious, quark, entropy, cinnabar, shamble and 912 more...
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Words Covered in Faery Dust (D)
words that evoke magic, mystery, mayhem, magnificence or anything else that glimmers in the grass
desert rose, dabble, daffodil, dagger, dairymaid, daisy, damask, damson, dappled, dart, dashed, dauphin and 111 more...
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Monovocalics
Words that have only one of the vowels. On this list I include only words with at least three vowels. When I first started the list, if a word had several forms, I generally listed only the one wit...
syzygy, mirific, cumulus, homolog, monocot, bedewed, jezebel, referee, bikini, minikin, locomotor, terebenthene and 2359 more...
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Stately Plants
The flowers and trees of states and nations.
camellia, forget-me-not, saguaro cactus, apple blossom, Calafornia poppy, Rocky Mountain, mountain laurel, peach blossom, American beauty rose, orange blossom, Cherokee rose, pua aloalo and 210 more...
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Chromonyms
These chromonyms are defined as colors in at least one dictionary (mostly MW3). (Actually there's one fake, for reasons I'll explain someday.) They are all one-word nouns such as "kelly", which can...
absinthe, acacia, acorn, alabaster, alesan, almond, aloma, amaranth, amber, amethyst, anemone, anil and 821 more...
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courtneyah's Words
sigh, troglodyte, lithe, cambium, bark, poem, trochee, minute, ablution, hermeneutic, dogwood, mystique and 98 more...
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The Garden on Ryons Street
I spent a few seasons doing gardening work for a former English professor. This is just a list of some of the friends I made in her garden. (Some of these plants spent the winter inside, of course.)
filipendula, Tradescantia, eglantine, Ispahan, Comtesse de Murinais, Crested Moss, rugosa rose, goutweed, creeping charlie, buttercup, lilac, cedar and 97 more...
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Flowers/plants
yarrow, chicory, black-eyed susan, goldenrod, bluebell, columbine, prickly pear, periwinkle, myrtle, forget-me-not, trillium, celadine and 61 more...
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Arboreal delight
oak, yew, eucalyptus, bottlebrush, mahogany, pine, holly, birch, willow, fir, wattle, dogwood and 16 more...
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A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (and elsewhere)
ginkgo, magnolia, rowan, bonsai, poplar, conifer, evergreen, maple, willow, sycamore, birch, oak and 8 more...
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See The Wood For The Trees
Tree names that end in -wood. Anything ending in -wood that only refers to the wood, eg. applewood, firewood, etc. shall not be planted in this garden.
moosewood, ironwood, blackwood, sandalwood, milkwood, redwood, agarwood, buttonwood, agilawood, eaglewood, camwood, lemonwood and 71 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for dogwood.

slumry Arf, arf, Stephen says every time he passes one. (sorry) Jul 11, 2007