Flowerbed

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A designated outdoor space where flowers are planted and cultivated for decorative purposes
2. An arranged patch of soil dedicated to growing and displaying flowering plants
3. A garden plot specifically prepared for planting flowers to enhance a landscape

Etymology: A flowerbed is about as transparent as English compounds get: a bed, meaning a patch of cultivated ground, planted with flowers. The "bed" half traces back to Old English "bedd", which meant a couch or a place to sleep, and it was extended to garden plots by the sense of ground prepared for planting, much as a seedbed is prepared soil for seeds. The "flower" half is the older and more familiar Old English "flor", which originally named the blossom itself and only later came to mean the flowering plant. Put together, the two words describe a plot of earth set aside for blooms rather than vegetables, a distinction that gardeners made long before the compound was written down. The word is written as one closed word, though many speakers still treat it as two.

Synonyms: garden bed, planting bed

Antonyms: weedy area