yarrow
nounEtymology Origin unknown. Perhaps imitative of the bird's cry; compare yaffle, hewhole.
1
UK A green woodpecker, of species Picus viridis.
yarrow
nounUK /ˈjæɹəʊ/ · US /ˈjæɹoʊ/
Etymology 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.
1
Usually Any of several pungent Eurasian and North American herbs, of the genus Achillea, used in traditional herbal medicine.
- 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.1922, Eleanour Sinclair Rohde, The Old English Herbals, Longmans, Green and Co.:
2
Usually Common yarrow, Achillea millefolium, the type species of the genus.
- The Yarrow, where-with-all he stops the wound-made gore:1612, Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion, song 13 p. 218:
- “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.1979, Victor Kaplan, The Woman who Gathered Yarrow; The Box; Miss Vesey's Other Leg, →ISBN, page 11:
- Synonyms
- milfoil, achillea, devil's nettle, sanguinary, soldier's woundwort, thousand-leaf, yarrow, bloodwort, nosebleed plant, old man's pepper, European green woodpecker, hewhole, hickwall, green woodpecker, whetile, whitwall, yaffingale, yaffle, yaffler, yockel
- Derived terms
- golden yarrow, yellow yarrow
- Hyponyms
- Alps yarrow, Chinese yarrow, Egyptian yarrow, fernleaf yarrow, Ligurian yarrow, noble yarrow, Siberian yarrow, sneezewort yarrow, sweet yarrow, common yarrow, maudlin, sweet maudlin