eglantine
Theme week: poeticisms, or words learned while reading way too much Victorian poetry. Starting with:
eglantine (EG-luhn-teen, EG-luhn-tayn) - n., any of a couple species of Old World wild roses, especially Rosa rubiginosa or sweetbrier.
Also used for R. canina or dogrose. Both species have pink flowers and prickles on their stems, and sweetbrier also has fragrant foliage. Borrowed in the late 14th century from Anglo-French eglent, from Old French aiglent, which apparently was specifically the dogrose, from conjectural Vulgar Latin form *aculentum, something with spines, from Latin aculeu, spine, prickle, dim. of acus, needle.
"White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine" —Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale," which is admittedly not Victorian but it's a damn sight better line than most uses I've come across.
---L.
eglantine (EG-luhn-teen, EG-luhn-tayn) - n., any of a couple species of Old World wild roses, especially Rosa rubiginosa or sweetbrier.
Also used for R. canina or dogrose. Both species have pink flowers and prickles on their stems, and sweetbrier also has fragrant foliage. Borrowed in the late 14th century from Anglo-French eglent, from Old French aiglent, which apparently was specifically the dogrose, from conjectural Vulgar Latin form *aculentum, something with spines, from Latin aculeu, spine, prickle, dim. of acus, needle.
"White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine" —Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale," which is admittedly not Victorian but it's a damn sight better line than most uses I've come across.
---L.