Etymology Learned borrowing from Latin crocus, from Ancient Greek κρόκος (krókos, “crocus”), from an ancient Semitic language.
1
A perennial flowering plant (of the genus Crocus in the Iridaceae family). Saffron is obtained from the stamens of Crocus sativus.
Other foreign terms have become so thoroughly Anglicised as to adopt English plurals, and it is sometimes difficult to decide whether the English or the original foreign form is the more correct. None but a pedant would speak of ‘the chori of an opera,’ ‘the croci in a garden,’ or ‘the dogmata of the church;’ […][a. 1881, William B[allantyne] Hodgson, “Noun”, in Errors in the Use of English, Edinburgh: David Douglas, published 1881, part II (Accidence), page 70:
Nothing is more short-lived than the erection; like the crocus of spring, it is there for a moment, and then it is gone; one moment the penis is small, soft, and insignificant, and then in the next it is hard, rigid, and three and four times its previous size.1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 128:
2
Any of various similar flowering plants, such as autumn crocus and prairie crocus.
3
Chemistry, Inorganic chemistry, Natural sciences, Physical sciencesObsolete A deep yellow powder, the oxide of some metal (especially iron), calcined to a red or deep yellow colour.
The characteristics of the crocus or vagabond quack doctor appear to find a sardonically appropriate origin in the Erse cruach-bhas, a bloody death.1887, Charles James Ribton-Turner, A History of Vagrants and Vagrancy, and Beggars and Begging, page 479:
The crocus of this novel is gusty Professor Louis Delfontaine, quack doctor, showman, charlatan and man of parts.1937, Neil Bell, Crocus: