asphodel

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a Mediterranean plant with tall spikes of white, pink, or yellow flowers, especially one of the genus Asphodelus

   White asphodel flowered across the dry hillside in spring.

2. 2
   noun

   in classical myth and later poetry, the flower associated with the meadows of the Greek underworld

   The poet imagined the dead wandering through fields of asphodel.

A learned borrowing through Latin asphodelus from Greek asphodelos, the plant name. Its deeper origin is uncertain and may be Pre-Greek. Classical descriptions of the asphodel meadows of Hades gave the flower a lasting literary association with death and memory.

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