blossom

From Middle English blosme, from Old English blostm, blostma, from Proto-Germanic *blōstmô (compare West Frisian blossem, Dutch bloesem; related to *blōstaz [compare German Blust]), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰleh₃-s- (“bloom, flower”), from *bʰleh₃- (“to bloom, to thrive”). Cognate with Albanian bleron (“to blossom, to thrive”), Latin flōs (“flower”), Flōra (“goddess of plants”). See more at blow (etymology 4).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈblɒs.əm/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈblɑ.səm/

  • Audio (General American):

    (file)

• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˈblɔs.əm/

  • Audio (General Australian):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒsəm, -ɑsəm
• Hyphenation: blos‧som

blossom (countable and uncountable, plural blossoms)

1. A flower, especially one indicating that a fruit tree is fruiting; (collectively) a mass of such flowers.

   The blossom has come early this year.

   • 1530 January 27 (Gregorian calendar), W[illiam] T[yndale], transl., [The Pentateuch] (Tyndale Bible), Malborow [Marburg], Hesse: […] Hans Luft [actually Antwerp: Johan Hoochstraten], →OCLC, Numeri xvij:[8], folio xxxiiij, verso:

     And on the moꝛowe / Moſes went in to the tabernacle: and beholde / the rod of Aaron of the houſſe of Leui was budded ⁊ bare bloſomes and almondes.

   • 1711 March 16, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, editors, The Spectator, volume I, number 16, London: […] S[amuel] Buckley, […]; and J[acob] Tonson, […], published 1712, →OCLC, page 89:

     Foppiſh and fantaſtick Ornaments are only Indications of Vice, not criminal in themſelves. Extinguiſh Vanity in the Mind, and you naturally retrench the little Superfluities of Garniture and Equipage. The Bloſſoms will fall of themſelves, when the Root that nouriſhes them is deſtroyed.

   • 1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], chapter III, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume I, London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, published 1 January 1818, →OCLC, page 95:

     Winter, spring, and summer, passed away during my labours; but I did not watch the blossom or the expanding leaves—sights which before always yielded me supreme delight, so deeply was I engrossed in my occupation.

2. The state or season of producing such flowers.

   The orchard is in blossom.

   • 1919 October, John Galsworthy, chapter I, in Saint’s Progress, London: William Heinemann, published December 1919, →OCLC, part III, 1 §, page 217:

     Down by the River Wye, among plum-trees in blossom, Noel had laid her baby in a hammock, and stood reading a letter: […]

3. (figurative) A blooming period or stage of development; something lovely that gives rich promise.
   • c. 1619–1622, Philip Massinger, “A Very Woman”, in Three New Playes: viz. The Bashful Lover, Guardian, Very Woman. […], London: […] Humphrey Moseley, […], published 1655, →OCLC, act IV, scene iii; republished as W[illiam] Gifford, editor, The Plays of Philip Massinger, […], volume IV, London: […] [F]or G[eorge] and W[illiam] Nicol [et al.] by W[illiam] Bulmer and Co., […], 1805, →OCLC, page 317:

     This beauty, in the blossom of my youth, / When my first fire knew no adulterate incense, / Nor I no way to flatter, but my fondness; / […] long did I love this lady, / Long was my travail, long my trade to win her; / With all the duty of my soul, I served her.

4. The colour of a horse that has white hairs intermixed with sorrel and bay hairs.
   • 1834–1847, Robert Southey, “A Feeble Attempt to Describe the Physical and Moral Qualities of Nobs”, in John Wood Warter, editor, The Doctor, &c., London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green and Longman, →OCLC; new edition, London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1862, →OCLC, page 358, column 2:

     For colour he [Nobs, a horse] was neither black-bay, brown-bay, dapple-bay, black-grey, iron-grey, sad-grey, branded-grey, sandy-grey, dapple-grey, silver-grey, dun, mouse-dun, flea-backed, flea-bitten, rount, blossom, roan, pye-bald, rubican, sorrel, cow-coloured sorrel, bright sorrel, burnt sorrel, starling-colour, tyger-colour, wolf-colour, deer-colour, cream-colour, white, grey or black. Neither was he green, like the horse which the Emperor [Septimus] Severus took from the Parthians, […]

• blasom (Jamaican English)

blossom (third-person singular simple present blossoms, present participle blossoming, simple past and past participle blossomed)

1. (intransitive) To have, or open into, blossoms; to bloom.
   • 1530 January 27 (Gregorian calendar), W[illiam] T[yndale], transl., [The Pentateuch] (Tyndale Bible), Malborow [Marburg], Hesse: […] Hans Luft [actually Antwerp: Johan Hoochstraten], →OCLC, Numeri xvij:[1–2 and 5], folio xxxiiij, verso:

     ANd the Loꝛde ſpake vnto Moſes ſayenge: ſpeake vnto the childern of Iſrael and take of them / foꝛ euery pꝛyncypall houſſe a rod / of their pꝛinces ouer the houſſes of their fathers: euen .xij. roddes / and wꝛyte euery mans name apon his rod. […] And his rod whom I choſe / ſhall bloſſome: So I wyll make ceaſe from me the grudgynges of the childern of Iſrael which they grudge agenſt you.

   • 1851 June 22, Henry D[avid] Thoreau, edited by H[arrison] G[ray] O[tis] Blake, Summer: From the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau, London: T. Fisher Unwin, […], published 1884, →OCLC, page 210:

     The Utricularia vulgaris or bladder-wort, a yellow pea-like flower, has blossomed in stagnant pools.

2. (intransitive) To begin to thrive or flourish.
   • 1869, Louisa M[ay] Alcott, “Gossip”, in Little Women: […], part second, Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, →OCLC, page 5:

     A quiet, studious man, rich in the wisdom that is better than learning, the charity which calls all mankind "brother," the piety that blossoms into character, making it august and lovely.

   • 1961 January 30, Rico Lebrun, “New Haven · Capri · Rome (1958–1960) [To David Lebrun from Los Angeles, January 30, 1961]”, in James Renner, David Lebrun, editors, In the Meridian of the Heart: Selected Letters of Rico Lebrun, Boston, Mass.: David R. Godine, […], published 2000, →ISBN, page 66:

     Since I came back from Pomona I have done many drawings to illustrate the Inferno of Dante [Alighieri] and I find my old Italian love blossoming all over again for this greatest of all master poets, bar none.

• (have, or open into, blossoms): bloom, come into bloom, come into blossom, flower
• (begin to thrive or flourish): bloom, flourish, grow, prosper, thrive

• blossom on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

blossom

1. Alternative form of blosme