ˈcuckoo-ˌflower
A name given to various wild flowers which are in bloom when the cuckoo is heard. a. The Lady's Smock, Cardamine pratensis, a cruciferous plant common in meadows.
| 1578 Lyte Dodoens v. lx. 625 Called..in Englishe, the lesser Watercresse, and Coccow flowers. 1772–84 Cook Voy. (1790) I. 40 Scurvy-grass..resembles the English Cuckoo flower, or lady's smock. 1833 Tennyson Poems 38 Each quaintly-folded cuckoopint And silver-paly cuckoo flower. |
b. The Ragged Robin, Lychnis Flos-cuculi.
| 1629 Parkinson Paradisi in Sole xxxviii. 256 Some call them in English Crowflowers, and Cuckowe flowers, and some call the double hereof, The Faire Maide of France. 1777 Lightfoot Flora Scot. I. 239 Meadow Pinks, Wild Williams, Cuckow Flower, or Ragged Robbins. 1861 Miss Pratt Flower. Pl. I. 227. |
c. Also applied locally to Orchis mascula and O. Morio; Red Campion, Lychnis diurna; Greater Stitchwort, Stellaria Holostea; the Cuckoo-pint; Wood Sorrel; Wild Hyacinth, and others. See Britten and Holland Plant Names.
| 1605 Shakes. Lear iv. iv. 4 With Hardokes, Hemlocke, Nettles, Cuckoo flowres, Darnell, and all the idle weedes that grow In our sustaining Corne. 1802 Wordsw. Foresight, Here are daisies..Pansies, and the cuckoo-flower. 1820 Clare Rural Life (ed. 3) 208 Where peep the gaping, speckled cuckoo-flowers. 1865 Cornh. Mag. July 34 The orchis is his ‘cuckoo-flower,’ because it blossoms when the cuckoo is first heard. |