Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of various plants of the genus Asperula, having whorled leaves and small funnel-shaped flowers.
  • noun The cultivated plant sweet woodruff, formerly classified in the genus Asperula.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A rubiaceous herb, Asperula odorata, of Europe and Asiatic Russia, more fully named sweet woodruff.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Bot.) A little European herb (Asperula odorata) having a pleasant taste. It is sometimes used for flavoring wine. See Illust. of whorl.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Galium odoratum, an aromatic herb.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun any plant of the genus Asperula
  • noun Old World fragrant stoloniferous perennial having small white flowers and narrow leaves used as flavoring and in sachets; widely cultivated as a ground cover; in some classifications placed in genus Asperula

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English woderofe, from Old English wudurofe : wudu, wood + -rofe, of unknown meaning.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Anglo-Saxon wudurofe. See wood (noun) and compare ruff a plaited collar.

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