Sunblooms

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Bright flowers with large petals that resemble the sun, such as sunflowers or other golden daisy-like blooms
2. Showy blossoms whose yellow or orange petals radiate outward like rays of the sun
3. Golden, sun-shaped flowers that open in full light and turn their faces toward the warmth of the day

Etymology: "Sunblooms" is the plural of "sunbloom", a compound formed from "sun" and "bloom" and found across the Germanic languages. The same pattern appears in West Frisian "sinneblom", Dutch "zonnebloem", and German "Sonnenblume", all meaning a flower of the sun, which suggests the image was built independently in several languages from the same two ingredients. Each part carries its own history. "Sun" comes from Old English "sunne", and "bloom" from Old English "blōma", originally a word for a flowering plant or blossom, which later came to mean the flower itself. Joined together, the compound describes a flower whose golden face mirrors the sun it turns toward.

Synonyms: sunflower