wallflower

plural wallflowers · alternative wall-flower · alternative wall flower

1. Any of several short-lived herbs or shrubs of the Erysimum genus with bright yellow to red flowers.

   A polypetalous corolla is either cruciform, as in a wall-flower, rosaceous, papilionaceous, as in the pea kind, or incomplete, when some parts found in analogous flowers are wanting.

   1809, William Nicholson, “BOTANY”, in The British Encyclopedia, or Dictionary of Arts and Sciences; […], volume I (A … B), London: Printed by C[harles] Whittingham, […]; for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, […], →OCLC, column 1

2. Gastrolobium grandiflorum, a poisonous bushy shrub, endemic to Australia.
3. A person who does not dance at a party, due to shyness or unpopularity; by extension, anyone who is left on the sidelines while an activity takes place.

   It is a triumph, of course, to have plenty of partners, and not to be a wallflower for a single dance.

   1897, Mrs. C. E. Humphry, Manners for Women, page 53

   5 more examples

   Mrs. Galbraith shook all over with laughter as she replied, "Hear that boy, asking me to dance ! I'm content to be a wallflower, now-a-days."

   1878, Fannie Bean, Dr. Mortimer's Patient: A Novel, page 23

   And now, by virtue of his office, he is entitled to a seat in the Grand Lodge. Is it any wonder he is a wall-flower there […]

   1885, The Freemason's Repository, page 133

   Jack Breen was a wallflower; still at the same time I noticed he was cultivating an ornamental smile — a Jack of Trumps, you bet.

   1913, Plasterer, page 8

   She was a wallflower in a sleepy little town itself a wallflower. She was a joke to the village wits and a byword to the village belles.

   1921, Collier's, page 3

   "Where--oh. Hidden in the corner. You two aren't already going all wallflower, are you?" "We are not wallflowers." "To be fair, I can be. But then I get mad at myself for it and get all loud and snarky."

   2013 May 22, Dan Shive, El Goonish Shive (webcomic), Comic for Wednesday, May 22, 2013

4. informalAny person who is socially awkward, shy, or reserved.

   I've always been a wallflower, even in my own home. But, I'm willing to learn to be a part of your world. I would like to. I have already told my parents that I want to go to soirées.

   2019, Liz Tyner, To Win a Wallflower, Harlequin, →ISBN

present singular third person wallflowers · participle present wallflowering · participle past wallflowered · past wallflowered · alternative wall-flower · alternative wall flower

1. intransitiveTo stand shyly apart from a dance, waiting to be asked to join in.

   […] the idea that a full tango experience is impossible without the presence of wallflowers and without the threat of wallflowering as the potential dancers enter the tango club.

   2010, Alexandra Carter, Janet O'Shea, The Routledge Dance Studies Reader, page 237