laurel

plural laurels

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

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

   1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 136

2. countableuncountableA crown of laurel.
3. countablefigurativelyin pluraluncountableHonor, distinction, fame.

   to win laurels

   2 more examples

   to crown with laurels

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

   2017, Fiona Lewis, Mistakes Were Made (Some in French), Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 3

4. countableuncountablebiologyAny plant of the family Lauraceae.
5. countableuncountablebiologyAny of various plants of other families that resemble laurels.
6. countablehistoricaluncountableAn English gold coin made in 1619, and so called because the king's head on it was crowned with laurel.

present singular third person laurels · US participle present laureling · UK participle present laurelling · US participle past laureled · US past laureled · UK participle past laurelled · UK past laurelled

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

   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.

   2014, Cayden Carrico, A Nocturne of Echoes, →ISBN, page 32

2. transitiveTo enwreathe.

   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.

   2013, John Hornor Jacobs, The Twelve-Fingered Boy, →ISBN, page 161

3. informaltransitiveTo award top honours to.

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

   2010, Andrew Rawnsley, The End of the Party, →ISBN

   3 more examples

   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.

   1866, Archibald Fergusson, The crusher' and the Cross, page 149

   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.

   1927, John Mackinnon Robertson, Modern humanists reconsidered, page 29

   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.

   2017, George William Rutler, Cloud of Witnesses: Dead People I Knew When They Were Alive, →ISBN

plural Laurels

1. MormonismFormerly, a participant aged sixteen or seventeen years old in the Young Women organization of the LDS Church.

1. A female or male given name from English from the laurel plant.

   "What on earth made Becky give you a name like that?" she'd asked Laurel, on that first occasion. "It's the state flower of West Virginia," Laurel told her, smiling. "Where my mother came from."

   1972, Eudora Welty, The Optimist's Daughter, Random House, →ISBN, page 27

2. A surname from Spanish.
3. A municipality of the Philippines; named for Miguel Laurel.
4. A neighbourhood of Edmonton, Alberta.
5. A number of places in the United States:
   1. A ghost town in Santa Cruz County, California.
   2. A neighborhood of Oakland, California.
   3. A town in Sussex County, Delaware; named for the laurel bushes growing in the area.
   4. A census-designated place in Florida.
   5. A town in Indiana; named for the city in Maryland.
   6. A city in Iowa; named for the community in Ohio.
   7. A city in Prince George's County, Maryland.
   8. A city in and one of the two county seats of Jones County, Mississippi; named for the laurel thickets in the area.
   9. A city in Montana; named for the laurel bushes growing in the area.
   10. A city in Nebraska; named for early settler Laura Martin.
   11. A hamlet in New York.
   12. An unincorporated community in Ohio.
   13. An unincorporated community in Oregon; named for the trees growing in the area, thought to be laurels (later identified as madrones).
   14. An unincorporated community in Tennessee.
   15. A census-designated place in Virginia.
   16. An unincorporated community in Washington.
   17. An unincorporated community in West Virginia.
   18. A river flowing from Lake, Kentucky into the Cumberland at Corbin, Kentucky.