flour

English

Alternative forms

• flower (obsolete)

Etymology

Spelled (until about 1830) and meaning flower in the sense of flour being the "finest portion of ground grain" (compare French fleur de farine, fine fleur). Doublet of flower. Partially displaced native meal.

The U.S. standard of identity comes from 21CFR137.105.

Pronunciation

• (UK) enPR: flou'ər IPA^(key): /ˈflaʊ̯.ə/
• (US, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈflaʊ̯.ɚ/

  • Audio (US)

    (file)

• (Indian English) enPR: flär IPA^(key): /flaː(r)/
• (Singapore) enPR: flär IPA^(key): /flɑː/
• (Philippine, nonstandard) IPA^(key): /flɑɹ/
• Rhymes: -aʊə(ɹ)
• Homophone: flower (for people who pronounce flour as two syllables or flower as one)

Noun

English Wikipedia has an article on:

flour

Wikipedia

flour (usually uncountable, plural flours)

1. Powder obtained by grinding or milling cereal grains, especially wheat, or other foodstuffs such as soybeans and potatoes, and used to bake bread, cakes, and pastry.

   Coordinate term: meal

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, “Foreword”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

     Everything a living animal could do to destroy and to desecrate bed and walls had been done. […]   A canister of flour from the kitchen had been thrown at the looking-glass and lay like trampled snow over the remains of a decent blue suit with the lining ripped out which lay on top of the ruin of a plastic wardrobe.

2. (US standards of identity) The food made by grinding and bolting cleaned wheat (not durum or red durum) until it meets specified levels of fineness, dryness, and freedom from bran and germ, also containing any of certain enzymes, ascorbic acid, and certain bleaching agents.

   Synonyms: smeddum, plain flour, wheat flour, white flour

3. Powder of other material.

   wood flour, produced by sanding wood

   mustard flour

4. Obsolete form of flower.
   • 1886 May, Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character. , volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Smith, Elder & Co., , →OCLC:

     that nobody is wished to see my dead body. & that no murnurs walk behind me at my funeral. & that no flours be planted on my grave.

Derived terms

Descendants

• → Drehu: falawa
• → Maori: parāoa
• → Palauan: blauang
• → West Uvean: falawa

Translations

See also

• bran
• farina
• meal
• smeddum
• wheatmeal

Verb

flour (third-person singular simple present flours, present participle flouring, simple past and past participle floured)

1. (transitive) To apply flour to something; to cover with flour.
2. (transitive) To reduce to flour.
3. (intransitive) To break up into fine globules of mercury in the amalgamation process.

Translations

References

Anagrams

• fluor, fluor-, four L, furol, orful, rufol

Cornish

Alternative forms

• flowr

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key):

Adjective

flour

1. flower, choice (best of a collective)

Noun

flour m (plural flourys)

1. (botany) flower
2. flower (the best of a collective)

Synonyms

• blejen, bleujen, blejan
• flowren

Middle English

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Anglo-Norman flur, from Latin flōrem, accusative of flōs. More at flower.

Alternative forms

• fflour, fflowr, fleur, flor, floure, flower, flowr, flowre, flowyr, flur

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fluːr/

Noun

flour (plural floures)

1. A flower (often representing impermanence or beauty)
   • 1387–1400, [Geoffrey] Chaucer, “Here Bygynneth the Book of the Tales of Caunt́burẏ”, in The Tales of Caunt́bury (Hengwrt Chaucer; Peniarth Manuscript 392D), Aberystwyth, Ceredigion: National Library of Wales, published c. 1400–1410], →OCLC, folio 2, recto:

     Whan that Auerill w^t his shoures soote / The droghte of march hath ꝑced to the roote / And bathed euery veyne in swich lycour / Of which v̄tu engendred is the flour […]

     When that April, with its sweet showers / Has pierced March's drought to the root / And bathed every vein in fluid such that / with its power, the flower is made

2. A depiction or likeness of a flower.
3. Success or achievement in a contest; victoriousness.
4. A virtue or benefit; something desirable.
5. That which is unparalleled; the top or most superior.
6. Flour (i.e. the best part of a grain)
7. A powder; especially one which is white like flour.
8. An exemplar or example of a trait or behaviour.
9. A woman's menstruation/period.
10. (rare) Virginhood; sexual abstinence.

Related terms

• flourdelis
• flouren
• flourynge
• floury
• lilie flour

Descendants

• English: flower, flour
• Scots: flouer, flour, floor
• → Middle Welsh: fflwr
  • Welsh: fflŵr

References

• “flǒur, n.(1).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2019-09-25.
• “flǒur, n.(2).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2019-09-25.

Etymology 2

From Old English flōr.

Noun

flour

1. Alternative form of flor

Occitan

Noun

flour f (plural flours)

1. (Mistralian) Alternative spelling of flor (“flower”)

Old French

Noun

flour oblique singular, f (oblique plural flours, nominative singular flour, nominative plural flours)

1. Alternative form of flor
   • 1377, Bernard de Gordon, Fleur de lis de medecine (a.k.a. lilium medicine), page 136 of this essay:

     non pasque les flours touchent a la chair nue car ce seroit doubte que les porres ne se clousissent et de fievre putride.

     but not that the flowers should touch the naked flesh because this may cause the pores to shut with a putrid fever.

Romansch

Noun

flour f (plural flours)

1. (Surmiran) Alternative form of flur (“flower”)

Scots

Alternative forms

• flouer

Etymology

From Middle English flour, from Anglo-Norman flur, from Latin flōrem, accusative of flōs. More at English flower.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈfluːr/

Noun

flour (plural flours)

1. a flower
2. a bouquet (bunch of flowers)
3. (uncountable) Wheat flour

Verb

flour (third-person singular simple present flours, present participle flourin, simple past flourt, past participle flourt)

1. to embroider