snowdrop
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See also: Snowdrop
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bb/Snowdrops%2C_Scot%27s_Poor_-_geograph.org.uk_-_694875.jpg/220px-Snowdrops%2C_Scot%27s_Poor_-_geograph.org.uk_-_694875.jpg)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/49/Galanthus_nivalis_-_Snowdrop.jpg/220px-Galanthus_nivalis_-_Snowdrop.jpg)
Pronunciation
[edit]- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈsnəʊ.dɹɒp/
- (General American) enPR: snōʹdräp, IPA(key): /ˈsnoʊ.dɹɑp/
Audio (General American): (file) Audio (General Australian): (file) - Hyphenation: snow‧drop
Noun
[edit]snowdrop (plural snowdrops)
- Any of the 20 species of the genus Galanthus of the Amaryllidaceae, bulbous flowering plants, bearing a solitary, pendulous, white, bell-shaped flower that appears, depending on species, between autumn and late winter or early spring, all native to temperate Eurasia.
- 1722, Thomas Tickell, Kensington Garden, London: Printed for J[acob] Tonson, in the Strand, OCLC 270894685; republished in The Poems of Garth, and Tickell (The British Poets. Including Translations. In One Hundred Volumes; XXVII), Chiswick, Middlesex: From the press of C[harles] Whittingham, College House, 1822, OCLC 16074759, page 166:
- A flower that first in this sweet garden smiled, / To virgins sacred, and the Snow-drop styled.
- 1842, [Katherine] Thomson, chapter XIII, in Widows and Widowers. A Romance of Real Life., volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 281:
- Tufts of primroses grew under the still leafless trees; the hepatica had succeeded the snowdrop.
- 1865, Ouida [pseudonym; Marie Louise de la Ramée], “White Ladies”, in Strathmore: A Romance. [...] In Three Volumes, London: Chapman and Hall, 193, Piccadilly, OCLC 4557613; republished as Strathmore: A Romance. [...] In Two Volumes (Collection of British Authors; 1169), volume I, Tauchnitz edition, Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1871, OCLC 798495291, page 9:
- White Ladies did not mean snowdrops, by their pretty old English name, ghosts in white cere-clothes, or belles in white tarlatan.
- 2016, Gail Harland, Snowdrop (Botanical), London: Reaktion Books, →ISBN:
- [I]t was considered unlucky to decorate a room with cut snowdrops. The name death's flower relates to an old belief that a solitary snowdrop indicates impending death, with suggestions that it was inauspicious to bring snowdrops indoors.
- 1722, Thomas Tickell, Kensington Garden, London: Printed for J[acob] Tonson, in the Strand, OCLC 270894685; republished in The Poems of Garth, and Tickell (The British Poets. Including Translations. In One Hundred Volumes; XXVII), Chiswick, Middlesex: From the press of C[harles] Whittingham, College House, 1822, OCLC 16074759, page 166:
- Alternative letter-case form of Snowdrop (“a Royal Air Force police officer”).
Derived terms
[edit]- Caucasian snowdrop (Galanthus alpinus var. alpinus)
- Crimean snowdrop (Galanthus plicatus)
- giant snowdrop (Galanthus elwesii)
- snowdrop anemone (Anemone sylvestris)
- snowdrop tree (Halesia spp.)
- snowdrop windflower (Anemone sylvestris)
- yellow snowdrop Erythronium spp.)
Translations
[edit]plant
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See also
[edit]Verb
[edit]snowdrop (third-person singular simple present snowdrops, present participle snowdropping, simple past and past participle snowdropped)
- (Australia, slang, transitive, intransitive) To steal clothing (especially women's underwear) from a clothesline.
- 1989, Southerly: The Magazine of the Australian English Association, volume 49, Sydney: Australian English Association, →OCLC, page 561:
- MS: There was a lot of snowdropping in those days? / SL: Oh, I've never actually stooped to snowdropping; I used to go into shops. Boosting, man, boosting. But you learn how to survive.
- 1992, Peter O'Toole, Loitering with Intent: The Early Years, New York, N.Y.: Hyperion Books, →ISBN, page 50:
- ‘Snowdropping’ is the business of some poor sods who, often from laundry drying on a clothes line, pinch items of ladies’ underwear, take them away and sniff them.
- 2011, Tony Hardy, “A Love Story”, in Fifteen Percent Pregnant: A Story of Life, and Love, and IVF, Docklands, Melbourne, Vic.: The Slattery Media Group, →ISBN, page 239:
- It'll be like snowdropping clothes from a clothesline. We'll snowdrop a baby.
References
[edit]snowdrop on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
Galanthus on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons
Galanthus on Wikispecies.Wikispecies
Categories:
- English compound terms
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with quotations
- English verbs
- Australian English
- English slang
- English transitive verbs
- English intransitive verbs
- en:Amaryllis family plants
- en:Flowers