snowdrop

Definition

Any of the 20 species of the genus Galanthus of the Amaryllidaceae, bulbous flowering plants, bearing a solitary, pendulous, white, bell-shaped flower that appears, depending on species, between autumn and late winter or early spring, all native to temperate Eurasia.

Etymology

From snow + drop.

Example Sentences

• "A flower that first in this sweet garden smiled, / To virgins sacred, and the Snow-drop styled."
• "Tufts of primroses grew under the still leafless trees; the hepatica had succeeded the snowdrop."
• "White Ladies did not mean snowdrops, by their pretty old English name, ghosts in white cere-clothes, or belles in white tarlatan."