Word of the
Day for Thursday 6th February 2014
Posy \POH-zee\, noun:
1. a flower, nosegay, or bouquet.
2. Archaic. a brief motto or the like, as one inscribed within a ring.
2. Archaic. a brief motto or the like, as one inscribed within a ring.
HAMLET:
Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?
OPHELIA: ’Tis brief, my lord.
HAMLET: As woman’s love.
-- William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1603
OPHELIA: ’Tis brief, my lord.
HAMLET: As woman’s love.
-- William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1603
This
time I have to bring her in an hour a posy of the rarest
flowers, and where am I to find them?
-- Andrew Lang, The Orange Fairy Book, 1906
-- Andrew Lang, The Orange Fairy Book, 1906
Posy is a variant of the word poesy,
meaning "poem, poetry." Sometimes called nosegays or tussie-mussies,
posies were popular accessories among fashionable women in Victorian England,
and, harkening the word's literary origin, became vehicles for the floral
"language of love."
Thanks to: www.dictionary.com
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