bachelor's-button

[ bach-lerz-buht-n, ]

noun

1. any of various plants with round flower heads, especially the cornflower.

Word History and Origins

Origin of bachelor's-button¹

First recorded in 1570–80; bachelor's ( def ) + button ( def ) (from the round or buttonlike shape of the flower)

Example Sentences

The broken bricks of the floor were transformed into pretty blue and white tiles, lattice windows took the place of their old and dim ones, the pots and pans were scoured until they shone, roses looked in at the outer door, where rows of larkspur and of gillyflower, of bachelor's-button and "Love-in-a-mist" were growing on either side of a neat flagged walk to the garden gate.

From Project Gutenberg

What would the elegant woman, with her costly jewels, India shawls, and splendid equipage, have thought of this whilom rival, who issued every summer morning from the lane, in her hand a bunch of those simple flowers, occupying, as she did, the border-ground between the wild hemlock and honeysuckle of the wilderness and the exotic of the parterre, the bachelor's-button, mulberry-pink, southernwood, and bee-larkspur, destined to fill a tumbler on an end of the counter where she displayed her most attractive goods?

From Project Gutenberg

Only Billy's bachelor's-button stood up stiff and sturdy, slightly flushed with imbibing the night dew, and tipped me an impertinent wink.

From Project Gutenberg

Citronnelle, purple irises, fringed asters, sage, lavender, rose-pêche, bachelor's-button, the d'Horace, and the wonderful electric fraxinelle, these and many other shrubs and plants of the older centuries were massed here with the taste of one difficult to please in horticultural arrangements.

From Project Gutenberg