Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The common blue flag, Iris versicolor, which grows in wet places or even in water.
- noun The yellow flag, Iris Pseudacorus. Also called
yellow iris and flower-de-luce.
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word water-flag.
Examples
-
I have already stated to you that if any definite flower is meant by these triple groups of leaves, which take their authoritatively typical form in the crowns of the Cretan and Laciuian Hera, it is not the violet, but the purple iris; or sometimes, as in Pindar's description of the birth of Ismus, the yellow water-flag, which you know so well in spring, by the banks of your Oxford streams.
Val d'Arno John Ruskin 1859
-
The palm, in the shorthand of their art, gradually becomes a symmetrical branched ornament with two pendent bosses; this is again confused with the Greek iris, (Homer's blue iris, and Pindar's water-flag,) -- and the Florentines, in adopting Byzantine ornament, read it into their own Fleur-de-lys; but insert two poppyheads on each side of the entire foil, in their finest heraldry.
Proserpina, Volume 1 Studies Of Wayside Flowers John Ruskin 1859
-
Because Dr. Priestley observed the pure air to come from both sides of the leaves and even from the stalks of a water-flag, whereas one side of the leaf only serves the office of lungs, and certainly not the stalks.
The Botanic Garden A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: the Economy of Vegetation Erasmus Darwin 1766
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.