Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of several chiefly Mediterranean plants of the genera Asphodeline and Asphodelus, having linear leaves and elongate clusters of white, pink, or yellow flowers.
- noun Any of several other plants, such as the bog asphodel.
- noun In Greek poetry and mythology, the flowers of Hades and the dead, sacred to Persephone.
- noun In early English and French poetry, the daffodil.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A name of various species of Asphodelus, a genus of plants, natural order Liliaceæ, natives of southern Europe.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Bot.) A general name for a plant of the genus Asphodelus. The asphodels are hardy perennial plants, several species of which are cultivated for the beauty of their flowers.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun botany Flowering plants of the Asphodelaceae family, especially Asphodelus ramosus and Asphodelus albus; the flowers of these plants.
- noun mythology The flower said to carpet
Hades , and a favorite food of the dead.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun any of various chiefly Mediterranean plants of the genera Asphodeline and Asphodelus having linear leaves and racemes of white or pink or yellow flowers
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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How do we appraise an illuminated manuscript from a 15th-century book of hours, the translucent skin of a lady's portrait from 1610 on a three-inch oval of vellum, the stems of an asphodel curling across the page in a botanical illustration from 1747 that dimly presages the all-over aesthetic of action painting?
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Two green hairstreak butterflies, gracefully viridescent, dance past on a soft wind that sifts through reeds, sets waving the tall golden flower stems of bog asphodel, and silky white plumes of cottongrass that has colonised the old peat-diggings.
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Where I come from almost nothing grows—except asphodel.
PERSEPHONE THE PHONY JOAN HOLUB 2010
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After a while the mist cleared and the group came upon fields of asphodel.
PERSEPHONE THE PHONY JOAN HOLUB 2010
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So what if asphodel was the only flower that bloomed here?
PERSEPHONE THE PHONY JOAN HOLUB 2010
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After a while the mist cleared and the group came upon fields of asphodel.
PERSEPHONE THE PHONY JOAN HOLUB 2010
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This harks back to my aptly named post Death and daffodils where I explored a possible native etymology of ἀσφοδελός 'the netherworld asphodel meadow' effectively meaning 'the meadow (ἕλος) not (ἀ-) reduced to ashes (σποδός) or 'unashen meadow'.
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Where I come from almost nothing grows—except asphodel.
PERSEPHONE THE PHONY JOAN HOLUB 2010
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The margins of the loch were a riot of colour – the bright yellow of the bog asphodel contrasting with the red, greens and yellows of the sphagnum mosses.
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So what if asphodel was the only flower that bloomed here?
PERSEPHONE THE PHONY JOAN HOLUB 2010
ruzuzu commented on the word asphodel
Honeysuckle! And now
there comes the buzzing of a bee!
and a whole flood
of sister memories!
Only give me time,
time to recall them
before I shall speak out.
Give me time,
time.
When I was a boy
I kept a book
to which, from time
to time,
I added pressed flowers
until, after a time,
I had a good collection.
The asphodel,
forebodingly,
among them.
I bring you,
reawakened,
a memory of those flowers.
They were sweet
when I pressed them
and retained
something of their sweetness
a long time.
From "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower" by William Carlos Williams
June 26, 2011
dailyword commented on the word asphodel
This word was used in the first Harry Potter movie.
June 12, 2012