Other forms: myrtles
Myrtle is an evergreen Mediterranean shrub with glossy leaves and fragrant white blossom. A sprig of myrtle, myrtle berries, a myrtle hedge.
It was sacred to Venus and it still goes into royal wedding bouquets in Britain, cut from a bush grown from Queen Victoria's own sprig. The berries flavour a Sardinian liqueur. Crepe myrtle is an unrelated plant with a borrowed name.
1nounmyrtleAn evergreen Mediterranean shrub with white blossom.
“The garden smelled of lavender and myrtle in the warm evening.”
myrtle is a shrub.
MYRtle → a TURTLE under the bush
A turtle asleep under a low green bush covered in small white flowers, in the sun by the sea.
hooks ontoturtle
Latin myrtus comes from Greek myrtos, the name of the shrub, probably from a Semitic source.
Ancient Greek
μύρτος — myrtle
Latin
myrtillus
Old French
mirtille
Middle English
mirtille
English, today
myrtle
From Middle English mirtille, from Old French mirtille, mirtile, from myrte, from Latin myrtillus, from myrtus + -illus, from Ancient Greek μύρτος (“myrtle”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA