What does "cornflower" mean?

A small annual plant in the family Asteraceae, Centaurea cyanus, usually with bushy blue flowers which grows natively in European cornfields (i.e. wheatfields).

How do you pronounce "cornflower"?

Pronounced //ˈkɔɹnˌflaʊ.ɚ//.

Cornflower

Q: What is a synonym for "cornflower"?

Common synonyms include: bachelor's button, bluebottle, bachelor's button, basket flower, belgian endive, blue.

//ˈkɔɹnˌflaʊ.ɚ// adj, noun

adj, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
A small annual plant in the family Asteraceae, Centaurea cyanus, usually with bushy blue flowers which grows natively in European cornfields (i.e. wheatfields).
2
an annual Eurasian plant cultivated in North America having showy heads of blue or purple or pink or white flowers wordnet
3
A plant of the species Cichorium intybus.
4
plant of southern and southeastern United States grown for its yellow flowers that can be dried wordnet
5
A color, cornflower blue.

Adjective

1
Synonym of cornflower blue, a shade of blue similar to that of the usual cornflower. not-comparable

Synonyms

All synonyms

bachelor's button bluebottle bachelor's button basket flower belgian endive blue

Example

More examples

"Among field flowers the most noted are the May Lily, the Ground Ivy, the Cornflower, Camomile and so on; and among herbs, Trefoil, Wormwood, Sorrel, the Nettle and so forth."

Etymology

From corn + flower. Piecewise doublet of cornflour.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.