reflorescent

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UK/ˌri.fləˈrɛs.ənt/UK/ˌri.flɔːˈrɛs.ənt/UK/ˌri.flɒˈrɛs.ənt/US/ˌri.flʊˈrɛs.ənt/

adjective

That flowers again.

Scrabble 17

Meanings

adjectivereflorescent (comparative more reflorescent, superlative most reflorescent)

comparative more reflorescent · superlative most reflorescent

  1. rareThat flowers again.

    In August most sweet reflorescent of rose trees / Folk of everywhere the blood of Paris.

    1946, “Paris”, in Stephen Spender, transl., edited by Hannah Josephson and Malcolm Cowley, Aragon: Poet of Resurgent France, translation of original by Louis Aragon, page 82
    3 more examples

    The nearest approach to Remontant as used for Roses, would be, perhaps, "Reflorescent" or "Ever-bloom".

    [1872 February 15, “Roses and Their Nomenclature”, in The Journal of Horticulture, Cottage Gardener and Country Gentlemen, page 150

    The half darkness became dissilient; the first beam of sunlight showed to Gifford and Stralie, growing out of the lime-crop that had shattered him, the reflorescent cotton-trees, whose blood the sudden breaking of the drought had startled into two blowths in the one year.

    1905, Randolph Bedford, The Snare of Strength, London: William Heinemann, page 340

    K. Marti […] suggests that Dante may have also been thinking of the iuncus in Isaiah 35:7, as well as the reflorescent tree in Job 14:7.

    2013, Robert Hollander, “Dante's Cato Again”, in Elena Lombardi, Maggie Kilgour, editors, Dantean Dialogues: Engaging with the Legacy of Amilcare Iannucci, University of Toronto Press, →ISBN, page 112
  2. figurativelyrareThat flourishes again; resurgent, reviving.

    Lawler's play was greeted (with excessive optimism) as the seed of a reflorescent native drama that would bear rich and truly Australian fruits.

    1983 January, Dennis Biggins, The Modern Language Review, volume 78, number 1, Modern Humanities Research Association, page 175
    3 more examples

    The absence of suitable means of expression in the vernacular for the rich dogmatic and ascetic teaching of a former age had led men to apply to this divine matter the classic forms so exuberantly reflorescent in the sixteenth century.

    1897 October, H. B. Mackey, “St. Francis de Sales as a Preacher”, in The Dublin Review, volume 121, page 398

    She, in the relative shade of her parasol, was revelling in this bath of light, like a plant adapted to a southern exposure; whilst he, reflorescent, felt the burning sap of the soil rise up through his limbs in a flood of exultant virility.

    1957, Vladimir Kean, transl., Doctor Pascal, London: Elek Books, translation of Le Docteur Pascal by Émile Zola, page 164

    Out of the “primitive life” of this mining camp and from the fecund genius of Charles F. McKim and William S. Richardson sprang the inspired vastness of a McKim, Mead & White coup de maître, its interior reflorescent of the Baths of Caracalla.

    1980, Grace M. Mayer, Once upon a City, New York: Octagon Books, →ISBN, page 289

Origin

  1. Latinreflōrēscēns
  2. Englishreflorescent

From re- + florescent. Alternatively, directly from Latin reflōrēscēns, present active participle of reflōrēscō (“to flower anew”), from re- + flōrēscō (“to flower”).

Full word history & related roots →

Rhymes & wordplay

Rhymes with reflorescent

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Cite this entry
APA

reflorescent. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/reflorescent

MLA

“reflorescent.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/reflorescent. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “reflorescent,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/reflorescent.

Source: reflorescent on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.