laurel — English Dictionary

Noun

1. An evergreen shrub of species Laurus nobilis, having aromatic leaves of a lanceolate shape, with clusters of small, yellowish white flowers in their axils.

   Usage

   • Countable
   • Uncountable

   Examples

   Laurel leaves were used in the Orient to promote amatory exercise.

2. A crown of laurel.

   Usage

   • Countable
   • Uncountable

3. Honor, distinction, fame.

   Usage

   • Countable
   • Figurative
   • in-plural
   • Uncountable

   Examples

   to win laurels

   to crown with laurels

   More examples (1)

   I was semi-famous; I had been something, but as one worthy critic remarked: past laurels fade fast.

4. Any plant of the family Lauraceae.

   Usage

   • Countable
   • Uncountable

5. Any of various plants of other families that resemble laurels.

   Usage

   • Countable
   • Uncountable

6. An English gold coin made in 1619, and so called because the king's head on it was crowned with laurel.

   Usage

   • Countable
   • Historical
   • Uncountable

Verb

1. To decorate with laurel, especially with a laurel wreath.

   Usage

   • Transitive

   Examples

   More examples (1)

   Windows peered from the spaces between the columns, which rose to hold up the large portico laureling the home with chiseled, decorative wreaths and curving spirals.

2. To enwreathe.

   Usage

   • Transitive

   Examples

   It wasn't hot this late in the year, and the sun was low in the southern sky, bracketed by pines and nearly hidden by a tree line laureling a trailer park.

3. To award top honours to.

   Usage

   • Informal
   • Transitive

   Examples

   More examples (1)

   In this regiment there was a young corporal, a native of Little K . He was laurelled and decorated more than many of his companions, for he excelled them all in courage, coolness, and daring. In one thing more he also excelled them — he was cruel, he was dissipated, and he was vicious in his tastes.

   Not in any vision of that order did he figure for most of the admirers who laurelled him on his eightieth birthday and the few who go on laurelling him still.

   He was laurelled in admiring headlines from both left and right.

   More examples (1)

   In 1973, the modern papist missionary was laurelled an honorary Doctor of Divinity by the institution founded by a Congregationalist missionary to the Indians of the northern wilds.

Noun

1. any of various aromatic trees of the laurel family

   Broader terms

   angiospermous treeflowering tree

2. (antiquity) a wreath of laurel foliage worn on the head as an emblem of victory

   Synonyms

   laurel wreathbay wreath

   Broader terms

   wreathgarlandcoronalchapletlei