ˈprick-madam Herb. Obs. exc. Hist.
Also 7 prick-my-dame.
[Altered from F. trique-madame (1545 in Hatz.-Darm.): see Littré.]
An old name of the Stone-crops, esp. Sedum acre; also S. album and S. reflexum.
| 1545 Elyot Dict., Aizoon,..called..singrene or house⁓leeke..The lesse..is called in english pricke madame. 1578 Lyte Dodoens i. lxxvii. 114 Prickmadame hath small narrow thicke and sharpe poynted leaues. 1688 R. Holme Armoury ii. 73/2 Leaves long and slender, and thick, like Prick-my-dame. Ibid. 99/1 Prick Madam, or stone Crop... It is termed also Trick Madam. 1883 Cassell's Fam. Mag. Oct. 672/2 Sweet country flowers..pansy, rose, lady⁓smock, prick-madam, &c. 1955 G. Grigson Englishman's Flora 182 Prick-madam was the name used [for the yellow stonecrop] in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 1978 Verbatim May 2/2, I have never grown stonecrop; now that I know it as prickmadam I am tempted to try. |