Definitions

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

  • noun Any of various plants chiefly of the genus Linaria, having narrow leaves and spurred, two-lipped flowers, especially butter-and-eggs.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A plant of the genus Linaria. primarily L. vulgaris, the common toadflax, a showy but pernicious plant, otherwise known as ranstead and butter-and-eggs.
  • noun In England, Thesium Linophyllon, which has leaves like those of toad-flax.

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

  • noun (Bot.) An herb (Linaria vulgaris) of the Figwort family, having narrow leaves and showy orange and yellow flowers; -- called also butter and eggs, flaxweed, and ramsted.

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

  • noun any of several European plants, of the genus Linaria, having two-lipped yellow flowers.
  • noun Any of several other plants in the family Plantaginaceae.

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

  • noun common European perennial having showy yellow and orange flowers; a naturalized weed in North America

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

toad +‎ flax

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Examples

  • Herbs and cabbages rise from the borders where Mr Darwin grew common toadflax.

    Archive 2009-09-01 David McDuff 2009

  • Subject line on the e-mail I am least likely to open this week: "Correction: Dalmatian toadflax story."

    Archive 2003-11-01 David 2003

  • "What d-ye think your father will do, " he inquired, swishing his stick casually through a patch of toadflax, -once ye've wed and left his house?

    A Breath of Snow and Ashes Gabaldon, Diana 2005

  • Subject line on the e-mail I am least likely to open this week: "Correction: Dalmatian toadflax story."

    Billings Blog David 2003

  • Among the rough white stones of the wall there were all manner of wild herbs growing, toadflax and ivy, stonecrop and selfheal, known by their leaves even now that hardly any flowers remained.

    The Leper of Saint Giles Peters, Ellis, 1913- 1981

  • Among the rough white stones of the wall there were all manner of wild herbs growing, toadflax and ivy, stonecrop and selfheal, known by their leaves even now that hardly any flowers remained.

    The Leper of Saint Giles Peters, Ellis, 1913- 1981

  • It was her definite rejection of the country and all it stood for; but on a gust of sentiment she picked up the toadflax blossoms and stuck them in water again -- her last tribute to the memory of Ishmael.

    Secret Bread F. Tennyson Jesse

  • A mellow brick wall enclosed the orchard, a wall beautified by small green ferns, by pink and red valerian, and yellow toadflax.

    Antony Gray,—Gardener Leslie Moore

  • Her fingers shook a little as she took a few blossoms of creamy-yellow toadflax he had picked for her out of their vase and laid them tentatively against her gown.

    Secret Bread F. Tennyson Jesse

  • Unlike the clover, the wood-sorrel and the ivy-leaved toadflax move with sudden violence.

    The Spring of Joy: A Little Book of Healing 1917

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