Bennets

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Perennial woodland herbs with small yellow flowers and hooked seed heads, known as wood avens
2. Wild plants of the rose family that grow in shady hedgerows and produce yellow five-petaled blossoms
3. Low-growing European herbs in the rose family, prized in old folk medicine for their roots and leaves

Etymology: "Bennets" is the plural of "Bennet," a given name and, as a noun, a plant name. The name comes from Benedict, the Latin "Benedictus," meaning "blessed" or "well spoken of." It reached English through French forms, where Benedict became Benoît, and the Norman form "Beneît" sits alongside them. "Bennet" and its close relatives Benoit and Benito are doublets: separate descendants of the same Latin name that took different routes into different languages. Among the best-known bearers of the name is Elizabeth Bennet, the heroine of Jane Austen's novel "Pride and Prejudice," so the plural form "bennets" often refers to a group of people sharing that surname, such as the sisters in Austen's family. The plural of a surname is used to mean a whole family, a usage common across English.

Synonyms: avens