Wreath
noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 Something twisted, intertwined, or curled.
"a wreath of smoke a wreath of clouds"
- 2 flower arrangement consisting of a circular band of foliage or flowers for ornamental purposes wordnet
- 3 An ornamental circular band made, for example, of plaited flowers and leaves, and used as decoration; a garland or chaplet, especially one given to a victor.
"So, after a spell, he decided to make the best of it and shoved us into the front parlor. 'Twas a dismal sort of place, with hair wreaths, and wax fruit, and tin lambrekins, and land knows what all."
- 4 A defect in glass.
- 5 An appendage to the shield, placed above it, and supporting the crest; an orle, a torse. It generally represents a twist of two cords of silk, one tinctured like the principal metal, the other like the principal color in the coat of arms.
- 1 Alternative spelling of wreathe. alt-of, alternative
"Sale) or Salovv a kind of vvoodde like VVyllovv, fit to vvreath and bynde in leapes to catch fiſh vvithall."
Example
More examples"A wreath was bound around his head."
Etymology
From Middle English wreth, wrethe (“coiled or rounded shape; decorative garland, wreath; chaplet, crown; ring”, noun), from Old English wrǣd, wrǣþ, wriþa (“bandage”), from Proto-West Germanic *wrīþan (“to twist; to weave”), from Proto-Germanic *wrīþaną (“to twist; to weave”), from Proto-Indo-European *wreyt- (“to twist”). Doublet of wreathe and writhe.
See wreathe.
Related phrases
More for "wreath"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.