mullein

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English

common mullein Verbascum thapsus

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Middle English moleyne, from Anglo-Norman moleine, which is either a Celtic borrowing and derived from Proto-Celtic *melinos (“yellow”) from *meli (“honey”) – an adjective found in Breton melen (“yellow”) and Welsh melyn (“yellow”) – or from mol (“soft”), from Latin mollis (“soft”), referencing the plant's fluffy, downy leaves, also apparent in synonyms such as feltwort, flannel leaf, and velvet plant.

Pronunciation

Noun

mullein (usually uncountable, plural mulleins)

  1. Any of a few hundred species of European and Asian plants, of the genus Verbascum, especially that majority that have yellow flowers.
    Synonyms: Aaron's rod, cow's lungwort, feltwort, flannel leaf, velvet plant
    • 1578, Rembert Dodoens, “Of Mulleyne⸝ or Hygtaper”, in Henry Lyte, transl., A Niewe Herball, or Historie of Plantes: , London: Loë for] Gerard Dewes, , →OCLC, 1st part (Sundry Sortes of Herbes and Plantes), page 118:
      There be foure ſortes of Mulleyne, as Dioſcorides writeth: wherof yͤ two firſt are white Mulleyne, and of them one is Male, and the other female: The third is blacke Mulleyne: The fourth is wilde Mulleyne. The white male Mulleyn (or rather Wolleyn) hath the whole top with his pleaſant yellow floures ſheweth like to a waxe Candell or taper cunningly wrought.
    • 1940, Rosetta E. Clarkson, Green Enchantments: The Magic Spell of Gardens, The Macmillan Company, page 267:
      As we all know, witches ride through the air on a broom, but sometimes their means of locomotion was a bulrush, a branch of thorn, mullein stalks, cornstalk, or ragweed, called fairies' horse in Ireland.

Hyponyms

Translations

References

  1. ^ James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Mullein”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC.
  2. ^ “mullein”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.

Finnish

Noun

mullein

  1. instructive plural of mulli

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