buttercup
(ˈbʌtəkʌp)
† 1. A cup for holding butter. Obs.
| 1512 Will E. Grantham (Somerset Ho.) My buttercuppis of silver. |
2. A name popularly applied to species of Ranunculus bearing yellow cup-shaped flowers, esp. R. bulbosus, R. acris, and R. repens; and usually taken as the English name of the genus.
[The name, which seems to be first recorded in the course of 18th c., may be regarded as a mixture of the older names for these plants, viz. butterflower and gold-cups or king-cups. In the earlier instances it is always buttercups.]
| 1777 Lightfoot Fl. Scot. (1789) I. 292 Ranunculus bulbosus, Bulbous Crowfoot, or Butter-cups, Anglis; R. acris, Upright Meadow Crowfoot. 1792 Martyn Flora Rust. I. 30 These three Crowfoots are confounded by persons ignorant of Botany under the names of Butter-flowers, Butter-cups, King-Cups, Gold-cups and Gold-knops. 1797 Miller Gard. Dict., It..is confounded vulgarly with the repens and bulbosus under the name of Butterflower or Butter-cups; under the notion that the yellow colour of butter is owing to these plants. 1803 Wordsw. Small Celandine 51 Wks. (1869) 120 Buttercups, that will be seen, Whether we will see or no. 1817 Rees Cycl. s.v., Ranunculus bulbosus, Bulbous Crow-foot, or Buttercups. 1821 Clare Vill. Minstr. II. 173 Feather-headed grasses..And yellow buttercup. 1872 Oliver Elem. Bot. ii. §2. 123 Thus, we refer all the species of Buttercup to the genus Ranunculus. |
b. Applied (with distinctive epithets) to other plants bearing flowers of similar appearance, water buttercup (Caltha palustris and Ranunculus aquatilis), white buttercups (Parnassia palustris). (Britten and Holland.)
3. attrib. (in late use, referring to the bright golden-yellow colour of the flower).
| 1875 M. E. Braddon Strange World i. 1 In buttercup-time, just when May..melts into tender June. 1883 Truth 31 May 760/2 Smartly dressed in a short buttercup satin skirt... The boots were of the buttercup shade of the satin skirt. |