Other forms: poppies
A poppy is a red field flower worn to remember the dead. Wear a poppy, a field of poppies, poppy seeds.
It grows on disturbed ground, which is why it covered the churned battlefields of Flanders and became the symbol it is. The seeds can lie dormant in soil for decades and germinate when it is turned. Opium comes from a different species of the same family.
1nounpoppyA red field flower worn to remember the dead.
“A single red poppy was growing at the edge of the wheat field.”
poppy is a flower.
Old English popig comes from Latin papaver, the poppy. The word is old in English and much altered.
Proto-Indo-European
*péh₂wr̥
Middle English
poppy
English, today
poppy
Built from
The noun is derived from Late Middle English poppy, Middle English popy, popi, popie (“plant of the genus Papaver; poppy seeds used as a spice”)pape, papie, papy, papye, popẹ̄, poppei, popye, (Early Middle English) papig, popi, popig, from Old English popiġ (“poppy”), Early Old English popeġ, popaeġ, popæġ, popeipapi, papig, perhaps from Latin papavum, popauer, from Latin papāver (“poppy”), which may be from a reduplication of Proto-Indo-European péh₂wr̥ (“bonfire”). a doublet of papaver. Sense 3 (“artificial poppy flower to remember those who died in the two World Wars and other armed conflicts”) reflects the efforts of American professor and humanitarian Moina Michael (1869–1944) to popularize the wearing of artificial poppies in remembrance of those who fought and died in World War I; she was inspired by the poem “In Flanders Fields” (1915) by the Canadian poet and soldier John McCrae (1872–1918): see the quotation. The adjective is derived from the noun.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA