Honeysuckles

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A type of flowering plant known for its fragrant blossoms, often producing sweet nectar that attracts pollinators
2. These climbing or bushy plants are valued both for ornamental use and their ability to attract wildlife
3. Commonly found in gardens, they are recognized for their tubular flowers and can be invasive in some regions

Etymology: The plural "honeysuckles" simply names more than one plant of this kind, so the story lies in the singular. Its ancestor was the Old English "huniġsūce" or "huniġsūge", built from "hunig" (honey) and "sūcan" (to suck). The name records a habit of children and bees: people sucked the sweet nectar from the base of the tubular flowers, which is exactly why the plant was named for sucking honey. Over the centuries the name was worn down into forms such as Middle English "honysokel" and "honisokel", and the ending "-le" became attached as a suffix. Some of the name's later forms also show "honeysuck" alone, which lies behind the "-le" version. The result is a compound describing a plant by what people did with its flowers, a name that has changed little in its essential sense since Anglo-Saxon times.