Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Any of various plants of the genus Veronica, having opposite leaves and clusters of small, usually blue flowers.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A plant of the genus Veronica, especially V. Chamædrys, an herb with creeping and ascending stems, and racemes of bright-blue flowers, whence it has received in Great Britain such fanciful names as angel's-eyes, bird's-eye, god's-eye, and eyebright. Also called germander-speedwell. The corolla falls quickly when the plant is gathered. The common speedwell is V. officinalis, which has been considered diaphoretic, etc., but is now no longer used in medicine. The thyme-leafed speedwell, V. serpylli-folia, is a very common little wayside herb with erect stems from a creeping base, and small white or bluish flowers with deeper stripes. Other species have special names, V. Anagallis being the water-speedwell, V. scutellata the marsh-speedwell, V. peregrina the purslane-speedwell or neckweed, V. arvensis the corn-speedwell, V. agrestis the field-speed well, and V. hederæfolia the ivy-leafed speedwell. See
Veronica .
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Bot.) Any plant of the genus Veronica, mostly low herbs with pale blue corollas, which quickly fall off.
WordNet 3.0
- n. any plant of the genus Veronica
Etymologies
- speed + well (Wiktionary)
Examples
“I think speedwell is also available in the Stepables line, meaning it can take some light foot traffic, so it would work well between stepping stones.”
“Oriental cockroach, lately imported; and Mr. Brewer observed with joy in his garden at Reigate the blue Buxbaum speedwell, which is now the acknowledged and hated pest of the Surrey agriculturist.”
Falling in Love With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science
“For your buttonhole I have braided loosestrife and self-heal and eyebrightand speedwell and speedwell.”
“A little further away, on Windmill Hill, the breeze had torn up tiny bits of brown paper which turned out to be small heath butterflies, and ginger, red and black bumblebees barreled over short turf jewelled in the blue and yellow of speedwell and buttercup.”
“Iffen anywun heer likes growing fings in gardens, mani speeshees ob bluebell and speedwell aer endanjured, adn mani obber wildflowers aer becoming rare.”
Frank never really understood - Lolcats 'n' Funny Pictures of Cats - I Can Has Cheezburger?
“Thaznks, speedwell-- I have never seen Mckay's here, but I'll look for it!”
“Notably, the AAUP opposes this practice. speedwell”
“For this is a safer time of year than the flourish of the spring-tide, when the impulse of young warmth awaking was suddenly smitten by the bleak east wind, and cowslip and cuckoo-flower and speedwell got their bright lips browned with cold.”
“A tea made from equal parts of sage, wormwood, licorice root, and alpine speedwell has also been used.”
“Around the fresh soil of the grave are a profusion of wild irises, speedwell, and a cluster of tiny blue flowers whose name escapes me although I have seen them before.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘speedwell’.
-
beyond pale
Words meaning or invoking the different aspects of pale.
Not just colour, but also the ideas of impermanence, illness, weakness. (Just not the two noun forms – a thin strip of metal or woo...pale, pallid, wan, light, misty, ethereal, cream, dim, white, thin, waning, colourless and 62 more...
-
Well
well, wells, swells, hot-well, well-being, wellborn, wellaway, wellness, Ida Bell Wells, H.G. Wells, Henry Wells, that's all well a... and 54 more...
-
Flora
fenugreek, verbena, saxifrage, arbutus, calendula, nasturtium, lobelia, hellebore, rhododendron, philodendron, bellflower, heuchera and 449 more...
-
a modern herbal
mugwort, horehound, hellebore, chamomile, comfrey, rosemary, calendula, rose, lavender, lamb's quarters, gamboge, mustard and 108 more...
-
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...
-
looked up
Words I've come across while reading and looked up in the dictionary.
deesis, pendentive, revetment, aedicule, stemma, patera, ephod, entrepot, corbel, exedra, volute, archivolt and 1408 more...
-
"A List of His MAJESTY's Ships and Ve...
Boston: Re-Printed and Sold at J. Draper's Printing-Office in Newbury-Street. (Price Sixteen Pence single.)
See the companion list, A LIST of the Men of War the French have left," 174...apollo, deptford, portsmouth, princess royal, scarborough, sutherland, william and mary, mary, fubbs, dublin, charlotte, catherine and 302 more...
-
persnickety parlance
behoove, ebullient, insouciant, insipient, froth, quandary, quixotic, tendril, maktub, furrow, furl, anastrophe and 1076 more...
-
verdure
word garden
botany, flora, flowerage, greenery, herbage, vegetation, verdure, horticulture, husbandry, herb, annual, blossom and 72 more...
-
perhapsolutely's Words
polyradiculoneuro..., abulia, abubble, abscission, abaft, zareba, abatis, abigail, abiogenesis, ablate, ablaut, abo and 1705 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for speedwell.
yarb Citation on traveller's joy. Aug 27, 2009