Definitions

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

  • noun Any of several plants of the genera Lychnis and Silene native chiefly to the Northern Hemisphere and having variously colored flowers with notched or fringed petals.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The popular name of certain plants belonging to the genera Lychnis and Silene (which see).

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

  • noun (Bot.) A plant of the Pink family (Cucubalus bacciferus), bearing berries regarded as poisonous.
  • noun a plant of the Pink family (Cucubalus Behen or Silene inflata), having a much inflated calyx. See Behen.
  • noun a garden plant (Lychnis coronaria) with handsome crimson flowers.

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

  • noun Any flowering plant of the genus Lychnis.
  • noun Any flowering plant of the genus Silene.

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

  • noun any plant of the genus Silene

Etymologies

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

[Origin unknown.]

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Examples

  • I used the red-flowered or day-campion, which is a perennial herb, and a smooth variety of the white evening-campion, which flowers as a rule in the first summer.

    Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation Hugo de Vries 1891

  • It possesses more fascination than the similar but staid red campion.

    Country diary 2011

  • Waist-high colonies of red campion alternate with leggy stalks of buttercup and bright eaves of flowering honeysuckle; dog roses sprinkle their pink, aromatic ladders from high hedge-tops.

    Country diary: Anglesey 2011

  • A semicircle of pink moss campion smiles from a stone. posted by Deron Bauman in books, literature, quotes | * | 1 comment comments

    favorite quote | clusterflock 2009

  • In the parish lanes, sunlit banks of red campion, white stitchwort, bluebells and ferns are dusty from earth eroded by burrowing rabbits and stirred up by traffic.

    Country Diary: St Dominic, Tamar Valley 2011

  • Waist-high colonies of red campion alternate with leggy stalks of buttercup and bright eaves of flowering honeysuckle; dog roses sprinkle their pink, aromatic ladders from high hedge-tops.

    Country diary: Anglesey 2011

  • There are 12 wild flower species in the ordinary playing field but in its first year the haven was home to 107 species, including scabious, white campion and bird's foot trefoil.

    Butterfly revival could be threatened by cuts, warns charity 2011

  • Granite bedrock and boulders – all encrusted with lichens – are lapped in clumps of white bladder campion and pink thrift, drifts of bluebells and patches of turf starred with vernal squill (the seaside bluebell).

    Country diary: Cornwall Virginia Spiers 2010

  • Above the neck of land and its relics of ancient fortifications tower pillars and blocks of granite where yet more bluebells grow in cracks and gullies, with cushions of sea-pink and campion softening ledges above the sea.

    Country diary: Cornwall Virginia Spiers 2010

  • The flowers are a deep magenta, both richer and brighter than red campion found elsewhere, and they stand bold and beautiful against the blue of the sea beyond.

    Country diary 2010

Comments

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  • From "Haile Selassie Funeral Train" by Guy Davenport.

    January 19, 2010