tansy

plural tansies

1. countableuncountableA herbaceous plant with yellow flowers, of the genus Tanacetum, especially Tanacetum vulgare.

   The sunny afternoon was there, like another land. By the path grew tansy and little trees.

   1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “chapter 12”, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC

   1 more example

   Various measures were taken to avoid it, most popular being the suspension of certain herbs and tree branches over the doorways of dwellings and stables. Commonly used greenery were tansy, honesty, garlic, St. John's Wort, mountain ash, roadside verbena.

   1940, Rosetta E. Clarkson, Green Enchantments: The Magic Spell of Gardens, The Macmillan Company, page 271

2. obsoleteuncountableA dish common in the seventeenth century, made of eggs, sugar, rose water, cream, and the juice of herbs (including tansy), baked with butter in a shallow dish. "Originally flavoured with tansy, but by Pepys's time generally having spinach as its predominant flavouring."

   I had a pretty dinner for them; viz., a brace of stewed carps, six roasted chickens, and a jowle of salmon, hot, for the first course; a tanzy and two neats' tongues, and cheese the second; and were very merry all the afternoon, talking and singing and piping upon the flageolette.

   1662, Diary of Samuel Pepys

1. A female given name from English.First known use 19th cent.

   (I love romantic folksy English names like Tansy and Violet, Ralph likes Mitfordesque names like Pamela and Daphne)

   2008, Rachel Johnson, Shire Hell, Penguin UK, →ISBN