Lexic.us

Definition of Pimpernel

1. Noun. European garden herb with purple-tinged flowers and leaves that are sometimes used for salads.

Definition of Pimpernel

1. n. A plant of the genus Anagallis, of which one species (A. arvensis) has small flowers, usually scarlet, but sometimes purple, blue, or white, which speedily close at the approach of bad weather.

Definition of Pimpernel

1. Noun. (rare) A plant of the genus ''Pimpinella'', especially burnet saxifrage, ''Pimpinella saxifraga''. (defdate from 16th c.) ¹

2. Noun. Any of various plants of the genus ''Anagallis'', having small red, white or purple flowers, especially the scarlet pimpernel, ''Anagallis arvensis''. (defdate from 15th c.) ¹

3. Noun. Great burnet or salad burnet. (defdate from 16th c.) ¹

4. Noun. Someone resembling the fictional (w Scarlet Pimpernel); a gallant dashing resourceful man given to remarkable feats of bravery and derring-do in liberating victims of tyranny and injustice. (defdate from 20th c.) ¹

¹ Source: wiktionary.com

Definition of Pimpernel

1. [n -S]

Medical Definition of Pimpernel

1. A plant of the genus Anagallis, of which one species (A. Arvensis) has small flowers, usually scarlet, but sometimes purple, blue, or white, which speedily close at the approach of bad weather. Water pimpernel. See Brookweed. Origin: F. Pimprenelle; cf. Sp. Pimpinela, It. Pimpinella; perh. From LL. Bipinnella, for bipinnula two-winged, equiv. To L. Bipennis; bis twice + penna feather, wing. Cf. Pen a feather. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998)

Lexicographical Neighbors of Pimpernel

Literary usage of Pimpernel

Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:

1. English Botany, Or, Coloured Figures of British Plants, with Their Essential by James Edward Smith, James Sowerby (1799)
"Scarlet pimpernel. ... Seeds many, angular, thickly crowded into a globe. The blue pimpernel is ..."

2. Kentish Lyrics: Sacred, Rural, and Miscellaneous by Benjamin Gough (1867)
"HENE'EE the scarlet pimpernel so tiny Opens its modest blossom to the sun, It brings good news of weather clear and shiny, A summer day begun. ..."

3. The Bookman (1907)
"... well as more frivolous people—have told me that in the play of The Scarlet pimpernel, eminently, Tennyson, or Heine, or that exquisite Persian poet, ..."

4. A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language by Walter William Skeat (1901)
"pimpernel, a flower. (F.-L.?) MF pimpernelle (F. pimprenelle'). ... The pimpernel was confused with burnet (Prior) ; and the latter (Poterium sanguisorba} ..."

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