reflorescent

English

Etymology

From re- +‎ florescent. Alternatively, directly from Latin reflorescens, present active participle of refloresco (“I flower anew”), from re- +‎ floresco (“I flower”).

Pronunciation

(UK) IPA^(key): /ˌri.fləˈrɛs.ənt/, /ˌri.flɔːˈrɛs.ənt/, /ˌri.flɒˈrɛs.ənt/^[1]
(US) IPA^(key): /ˌri.fləˈrɛs.ənt/, /ˌri.flʊˈrɛs.ənt/, /ˌri.flɔˈrɛs.ənt/^[1]
Rhymes: -ɛsənt

Adjective

reflorescent (comparative more reflorescent, superlative most reflorescent)

(rare) That flowers again.
- [1872 February 15, “Roses and Their Nomenclature”, in The Journal of Horticulture, Cottage Gardener and Country Gentlemen, page 150:
  The nearest approach to Remontant as used for Roses, would be, perhaps, "Reflorescent" or "Ever-bloom".]
- 1905, Randolph Bedford, The Snare of Strength, London: William Heinemann, page 340:
  The half darkness became dissilient; the first beam of sunlight showed to Gifford and Stralie, growing out of the lime-crop that had shattered him, the reflorescent cotton-trees, whose blood the sudden breaking of the drought had startled into two blowths in the one year.
- 1946, “Paris”, in Stephen Spender, transl., edited by Hannah Josephson and Malcolm Cowley, Aragon: Poet of Resurgent France, translation of original by Louis Aragon, page 82:
  In August most sweet reflorescent of rose trees / Folk of everywhere the blood of Paris.
- 2013, Robert Hollander, “Dante's Cato Again”, in Elena Lombardi, Maggie Kilgour, editors, Dantean Dialogues: Engaging with the Legacy of Amilcare Iannucci, University of Toronto Press, →ISBN, page 112:
  K. Marti […] suggests that Dante may have also been thinking of the iuncus in Isaiah 35:7, as well as the reflorescent tree in Job 14:7.
(rare, figurative) That flourishes again; resurgent, reviving.
- 1897 October, H. B. Mackey, “St. Francis de Sales as a Preacher”, in The Dublin Review, volume 121, page 398:
  The absence of suitable means of expression in the vernacular for the rich dogmatic and ascetic teaching of a former age had led men to apply to this divine matter the classic forms so exuberantly reflorescent in the sixteenth century.
- 1957, Vladimir Kean, transl., Doctor Pascal, London: Elek Books, translation of Le Docteur Pascal by Émile Zola, page 164:
  She, in the relative shade of her parasol, was revelling in this bath of light, like a plant adapted to a southern exposure; whilst he, reflorescent, felt the burning sap of the soil rise up through his limbs in a flood of exultant virility.
- 1980, Grace M. Mayer, Once upon a City, New York: Octagon Books, →ISBN, page 289:
  Out of the “primitive life” of this mining camp and from the fecund genius of Charles F. McKim and William S. Richardson sprang the inspired vastness of a McKim, Mead & White coup de maître, its interior reflorescent of the Baths of Caracalla.
- 1983 January, Dennis Biggins, The Modern Language Review, volume 78, number 1, Modern Humanities Research Association, page 175:
  Lawler's play was greeted (with excessive optimism) as the seed of a reflorescent native drama that would bear rich and truly Australian fruits.

Related terms

References

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 “reflorescent, adj.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.

[OED-1] 1.0 ^1.1 “reflorescent, adj.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.

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