sundew
(ˈsʌndjuː)
Forms: see sun n.1 and dew n.
[ad. early mod.Du. son-, sundauw, = G. sonnentau, transl. of L. rōs sōlis (see ros solis).
It has been suggested that OE. sundéaw (glossing ‘rosmarina’) is for *sunddéaw, i.e. ‘sea-dew’, a literal rendering of L. rōsmarīnus.]
Any plant of the genus Drosera, which comprises small herbs growing in bogs, with leaves covered with glandular hairs secreting viscid drops which glitter in the sun like dew; esp. D. rotundifolia (round-leaved or common sundew).
| 1578 Lyte Dodoens iii. lxxi. 412 Although that the Sonne do shine hoate..thereon, yet you shall finde it alwayes moyst..and for that cause it was called Ros Solis in Latine, whiche is to say in Englishe The dewe of the Sonne, or Sonnedewe. 1597 Gerarde Herbal iii. clv. 1366 It is called in English Sunne deaw, Ros Solis, Youth woort; in the North parts Red rot, bicause it rotteth sheepe, and in Yorkeshire Moore grasse. 1698 Phil. Trans. XX. 328 Hairs like those on the Leaves of Sundew. 1757 A. Cooper Distiller iii. l. (1760) 215 The Ros-Solis or Sundew, from whence this Cordial water has its name. 1840 Hodgson Hist. Northumb. iii. ii. 360/2 Drosera anglica, Greater Sundew. 1870 Kingsley At Last xii, The long-leaved Sundew, with its clammy-haired paws full of dead flies. a 1887 R. Jefferies Field & Hedgerow (1889) 275 The ‘sog’, or peaty place where the spring rises, and where the sundew grows. |
| attrib. 1837 Partington's Brit. Cycl. Nat. Hist. II. 330/1 Droseraceæ, the Sundew family. 1887 Bentley Man. Bot. (ed. 5) 550 The Sundew Order. |