blossom

blossom n flower, bloom, blow (see under BLOSSOM vb)

blossom vb Blossom, bloom, flower, blow are comparable as verbs when meaning to become florescent and as nouns when meaning the period or state of florescence or (except for blow) meaning the florescent part itself.

Blossom may be used of a plant that reaches the condition of florescence, but typically it applies to trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants (and to their florescent parts) that normally proceed to bear what is ordinarily (not technically) called a fruit

{

the cherry trees are in blossom

}

{

the apple trees will blossom next month

}

{

the tomatoes have shed their blossoms

}

Bloom, though sometimes employed interchange-ably with blossom, is typically used of such herbaceous plants, shrubs, or trees (or their florescent parts) as have reached the height of their beauty during the period of florescence

{

the roses are in bloom

}

{

the iris is blooming

}

{

the rhododendron has blooms in early June in this locality

}

Flower in technical use as a noun refers to the part of a seed plant which normally bears reproductive organs; in popular use it is usually restricted to such part when its gross structure is showy and conspicuously colored or white. Fragrance, freshness, shortness of life or of beauty are the implications in the popular use of the noun and the verb that distinguishes flower from bloom chiefly but also from blossom; also flower is often thought of as apart from the plant where it has grown

{

a bouquet of flowers

}

{

the rambler's period of flowering is short

}

{

one after another the garden plants flowered, but always in the meantime some had faded

}

{

as for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth— Ps 103:15

}

{

full many a flower is born to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness on the desert air— Gray

}

{

there can be no perfect flower without fragrance— Symons

}

Blow, in this sense, has an archaic or poetic flavor except in the combination full-blown. Usually it suggests a bursting into flower or bloom and often, especially in the noun, connotes a great display of blooms

{

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows— Shak.

}

{

the blossoms blow; the birds on bushes sing— Dryden

}

{

such a blow of tulips, as was not to be matched—/! ddison

}

All of these words have extended use.

Blossom usually suggests something analogous to a natural blossom (as in freshness or rich development)

{

after a shy girlhood she is blossoming out in college

}

Bloom usually suggests a time or period of perfection, vigor, or beauty

{

the bloom of perfect manhood— Hamerton

}

{

the hills are full of marble before the world blooms with statues— Phillips Brooks

}

Flower implies the choicest part, specimen, or product of something or its coming into being

{

the flower of a nation died in that war

}

{

always the flower of courtesy— Cather

}

{

I think it [Greek literature] one of the brightest flowers of the human spirit— Benson

}

{

art, he thought, should flower from an immediate impulse towards self- expression or communication— Huxley

}

Blow, by far the least frequent of these terms in such use, implies a bursting into beauty or perfection