yarrow

See also: Yarrow

English

a yarrow plant Achillea millefolium

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈjæɹəʊ/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈjæɹoʊ/
• Rhymes: -æɹəʊ

Etymology 1

From Middle English ȝarowe, yarowe, yarwe, from Old English ġearwe, from Proto-West Germanic *garwā (“yarrow, yarrow-like herbs”), perhaps derived from *garu (“prepared, ready (of food)”), as the plant was used medicinally for digestion.

Cognate with Dutch gerw (“yarrow”) and German (Schaf-)garbe.

Noun

yarrow (usually uncountable, plural yarrows)

1. Any of several pungent Eurasian and North American herbs, of the genus Achillea, used in traditional herbal medicine.
   • 1922, Eleanour Sinclair Rohde, The Old English Herbals‎^[1], Longmans, Green and Co.:

     Yarrow is one of the aboriginal English plants, and from time immemorial it has been used in incantations and by witches. Country folk still regard it as one of our most valuable herbs, especially for rheumatism.

2. Common yarrow, Achillea millefolium, the type species of the genus.
   • 1612, Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion, song 13 p. 218:

     The Yarrow, where-with-all he stops the wound-made gore:

   • 1979, Victor Kaplan, The Woman who Gathered Yarrow; The Box; Miss Vesey's Other Leg, →ISBN, page 11:

     “Oh, yarrow! This is it,” she said, extracting a single long stemmed ferny grass with clusters of small white flowers from the bouquet in her hand.

Synonyms

• (Achillea spp.): milfoil, achillea
• (Achillea millefolium): devil's nettle, sanguinary, soldier's woundwort, thousand-leaf
• See also Thesaurus:yarrow

Hyponyms

• Alps yarrow (Achillea distans)
• Chinese yarrow (Achillea alpina)
• Egyptian yarrow (Achillea aegyptiaca)
• fernleaf yarrow (Achillea filipendulina)
• Ligurian yarrow (Achillea ligustica)
• noble yarrow (Achillea nobilis)
• Siberian yarrow (Achillea sibirica)
• sweet yarrow (Achillea ageratum)

Derived terms

• golden yarrow
• yellow yarrow

 

Translations

herb of the genus Achillea

• Albanian: bari mijëfletësh
• Arabic: قَيْصُوم m (qayṣūm)
• Armenian: հազարատերևուկ (hy) (hazaraterewuk), բացմենակ (hy) (bacʻmenak)
• Azerbaijani: please add this translation if you can
• Bulgarian: бял равнец m (bjal ravnec)
• Catalan: milfulles f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 蓍 (zh) (shī)

• Czech: řebříček (cs)
• Danish: røllike c
• Dutch: duizendblad (nl) n, gerw (nl) m or f
• Estonian: raudrohi
• Finnish: kärsämö (fi)
• French: achillée (fr) f, mille-feuille (fr) f
• Galician: milfollas (gl) m
• Georgian: ფარსმანდუკი (parsmanduḳi)
• German: Schafgarbe (de) f
• Greek: αγριαψιθιά (el) (agriapsithiá)
• Halkomelem: xaweqá:l
• Hungarian: cickafark (hu)
• Irish: athair thalún f, luibh na ndaitheacha f
• Italian: millefoglio (it) m
• Kazakh: please add this translation if you can
• Latin: mīlifolium f
• Latvian: pelašķis
• Laz: სოხადია (soxadia)
• Lithuanian: kraujažolė
• Macedonian: а́јдучка тре́ва f (ájdučka tréva), ајду́чица f (ajdúčica), сто́лисник m (stólisnik)
• Middle English: yarwe
• Navajo: hazéí yiltseeʼí
• Norman: hèrbe au tchèrpentchi f (Jersey), tchèrpentchiéthe f (Jersey)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: ryllik m

  Nynorsk: ryllik m

• Occitan: milafuèlhas m
• Old English: ġearwe f
• Old Saxon: garwa
• Persian: please add this translation if you can
• Polish: krwawnik (pl) m
• Portuguese: milefólio (pt) m
• Romanian: coada șoricelui
• Russian: тысячели́стник (ru) m (tysjačelístnik)
• Serbo-Croatian: hajdučka trava (sh) f, kunica (sh) f

  Cyrillic: сто̀лиснӣк m

  Latin: stòlisnīk (sh) m

• Slovak: please add this translation if you can
• Slovene: rman
• Sorbian:

  Lower Sorbian: rotwica f, źiwa garba f, kšawnik m

• Spanish: milenrama f, plumajillo m, perejil bravío
• Swedish: röllika (sv) c, rölleka (sv) c
• Turkish: civanperçemi (tr)
• Turkmen: please add this translation if you can
• Welsh: milddail

Achillea millefolium — see common yarrow

Further reading

• Achillea on Wikispecies.Wikispecies
• yarrow on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• yarrow at USDA Plants database

Etymology 2

a green woodpecker, Picus viridis

Origin unknown. Perhaps imitative of the bird's cry; compare yaffle, hewhole.

Noun

yarrow (plural yarrows)

1. (UK) A green woodpecker, of species Picus viridis.

Translations

Picus viridis — see green woodpecker

Further reading

• European green woodpecker on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Picus viridis on Wikispecies.Wikispecies

Anagrams

• arrowy