willow

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English

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A weeping willow, a commonly seen willow cultivar.

Etymology

From Middle English wilwe, welew, variant of wilghe, from Old English welig, from Proto-West Germanic *wilig, from Proto-Germanic *wiligaz, from Proto-Indo-European *welik- (compare (Arcadian) Ancient Greek ἑλίκη (helíkē), Hittite 𒌑𒂖𒆪 (welku, “grass”)), from *wel- (“twist, turn”).

Pronunciation

Noun

willow (countable and uncountable, plural willows)

  1. Any of various deciduous trees or shrubs in the genus Salix, in the willow family Salicaceae, found primarily on moist soils in cooler zones in the northern hemisphere.
    • 1912 January, Zane Grey, chapter 8, in Riders of the Purple Sage , New York, N.Y., London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, →OCLC:
      […] and through the middle of this forest, from wall to wall, ran a winding line of brilliant green which marked the course of cottonwoods and willows.
    • 1917, Edward Thomas, “Adlestrop”, in Poems, London: Selwyn & Blount, page 40:
      And willows, willow-herb, and grass, / And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry, / No whit less still and lonely fair / Than the high cloudlets in the sky.
    • 1983 December 3, J. R., “Isak Dinesen, The Life of a Storyteller (review)”, in Gay Community News, volume 11, number 20, page 10:
      By old age she was emaciated, the bones jutting out of her face and her figure frail as a willow branch.
  2. The wood of these trees.
  3. (cricket, colloquial) A cricket bat.
  4. (baseball, slang, 1800s) The baseball bat.
  5. A rotating spiked drum used to open and clean cotton heads.

Synonyms

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

willow (third-person singular simple present willows, present participle willowing, simple past and past participle willowed)

  1. (transitive) To open and cleanse (cotton, flax, wool, etc.) by means of a willow.
  2. (intransitive) To form a shape or move in a way similar to the long, slender branches of a willow.
    • 1928, Robert Byron, chapter 12, in The Station: Travels to the Holy Mountain of Greece‎:
      Willowing over the rough cobbles of the little pier stepped a thin, bent figure, adorned with a silver nannygoat’s beard and bobbling eyes interrupted by the rim of a pair of pince-nez.
    • 1930, Talbot Mundy, chapter 7, in Black Light‎:
      Joe’s impulse was to sketch her, with her shadow willowing beyond her on the mouse-gray paving-stone; but his left fist, obeying instinct, remained clenched behind his back […]
    • 1985, Martin Booth, Hiroshima Joe, New York: Picador, page 394:
      It was floating a foot under the surface. The eyes were holes. The mouth was a slit cavern of darkness. The hair willowed around the scalp.
    • 2013, Dean Koontz, Wilderness‎, Bantam Books:
      The draft-drawn smoke willowed down through the hole and across my face, but I didn’t worry about coughing or sneezing.
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