veronica

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of various plants of the genus Veronica, which includes the speedwells.
2. n. According to popular legend, an image of the face of Jesus as impressed on the handkerchief offered to him by Saint Veronica on the road to Calvary.
3. n. The handkerchief itself.
4. n. A cloth bearing a representation of Jesus's face.
5. n. A maneuver in bullfighting in which the matador stands with both feet fixed in position and swings the cape slowly away from the charging bull.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A napkin or piece of cloth impressed with the face of Christ: from the legend that a woman named Veronica wiped the face of Christ with her handkerchief when he was on his way to Calvary, and that the likeness of the face was miraculously impressed upon the cloth. Also vernicle.
2. n. [capitalized] [NL. (Rivinus, 1690; earlier, about 1554, by Mattioli).] A genus of gamopetalous plants, of the order Scrophularineæ and tribe Digitaleæ, type of subtribe Veroniceæ. It is characterized “by opposite lower leaves, a wheelshaped corolla with a very short tube and spreading lobes, and by two stamens with their anther-cells confluent at the apex. About 220 species have been described, perhaps to be reduced to 180. They are widely scattered through temperate and cold regions, and are usually low herbs, their stem-leaves almost always plainly opposite, but the floral leaves always alternate and commonly diminished into bracts. V. Virginica is exceptional in its whorled leaves. The flowers arc blue, often penciled with violet, and varying to purple, pink, or white, but never yellow; they form terminal or axillary racemes, or are solitary and sessile in the axils. The fruit is a loculicidal or four-valved capsule, often obtuse or notched, rarely acute. The species are known as speedwell, especially V. Chamædrys, also called forget-me-not (see speedwell). A few are of medicinal repute, especially V. Virginica, known as black-root and Culver's-root or Culver's-physic, a tall perennial with wand-like stem from 2 to 6 feet high, and a white spike from 6 to 10 inches long, occurring in Canada, the eastern and central United States, Japan, and Siberia. The leaves of V. officinalis have been used as a medicinal tea; the socalled Mont Cenis tea is from V. Allionii. Twelve species are natives of England, 60 of Europe, 6 of Alaska, and 11 of the United States proper, only two of which are confined to North America: V. Cusickii, a large-flowered alpine plant of Oregon and California, and V. Americana, known as brooklime, a petiolate aquatic with purple-striped paleblue flowers, distributed from Virginia and New Mexico to Alaska. The similar V. Beccabunga of the Old World is the original brooklime. Five other species are now naturalized in the United States; of these, V. peregrina and V. serpyllifolia are almost cosmopolitan. (See neckweed, and Paul's betony (under betony).) For V. hederæfolia, see henbit; and for V. officinalis, see speedwell (with cut) and fluellen. Many foreign species (at least fifty) are valued for cultivation in gardens, as V. longifolia, or for rockeries, as V. repens, a creeper forming a mat of pale-blue flowers. Many are of variegated colors, as V. saxatilis. an alpine plant with blue violet-striped flowers, narrowly ringed with crimson around the white center. Numerous species occur in high southern latitudes, 14 in Australia, and 24 in New Zealand, one of which, V. elliptica, extends to Cape Horn, and sometimes becomes a small tree 20 feet high. The genus reaches its greatest development in New-Zealand, where it is present in remarkable beauty and abundance. Nearly all the species are shrubby, usually from 2 to 6 feet high, and are cultivated under glass, especially V. salicifolia and V. speciosa, with wine-colored flowers, the largest-leafed species, as also V. formosa of Tasmania. V. buxifolia, with purple-veined white flowers, is sometimes known as New Zealand box; and V. perfoliata, of southern Australia, as digger's-speedwell. V. tetragona of New Zealand, from its hard imbricated decussate connate leaves, has been mistaken for a conifer.

Wiktionary

1. n. Roman Catholicism The image of Jesus's face believed to have been made on the cloth with which St Veronica wiped his face as he went to be crucified; or the cloth used for this.
2. n. bullfighting A circular swinging movement of the cape, used to avoid the bull.
3. n. botany A flower of the genus Veronica, usually having blue petals.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A portrait or representation of the face of our Savior on the alleged handkerchief of Saint Veronica, preserved at Rome; hence, a representation of this portrait, or any similar representation of the face of the Savior. Formerly called also Vernacle, and Vernicle.
2. n. (Bot.) A genus of scrophulariaceous plants; the speedwell. See Speedwell.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. any plant of the genus Veronica