Other forms: florists
A florist is the shopkeeper who sells flowers and ties them into bouquets. Buckets of tulips out on the pavement, a cold room at the back, brown paper and a length of ribbon while you wait.
The word covers the person and the shop at once: you train as a florist, and you stop at the florist on the way home. A florist arranges as much as sells — wreaths for a funeral, a buttonhole for a wedding, the same twelve roses every February. The trade itself is floristry. Keep the florist apart from the gardener, who grows plants in the ground, and from the botanist, who studies them: the florist works with cut stems.
1nounfloristA person who sells and arranges cut flowers as a trade.
“She trained as a florist and now runs a stall in the covered market.”
synonyms: flower seller
2nounshopThe shop where cut flowers are sold.
“There is a florist next to the station that stays open until eight.”
florist is a shopkeeper.
Florist grew out of French fleuriste, built on Latin floris, the possessive form of flos, flower. The ending is the same -ist that turns art into artist and piano into pianist — the person who works with the thing. A florist is, letter for letter, a flower-ist.
Latin
floris — genitive singular of flōs, flower
French
fleuriste
English, today
florist
From French fleuriste, from Latin floris (“genitive singular of flōs, flower”), ist.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Work & Careers, A Man Called Ove, Jobs & Professions
First appears in chapter 4 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word