a. Now rare or Obs. Also 5 vernand, 6 vernaunte, varnaunt. [a. OF. vernant vernal, ad. L. vernant-, vernans, pres. pple. of vernāre to flourish, be verdant.]
1. Flourishing or growing in, or as in, spring.
c. 1440. York Myst., xxv. 498. Hayll! vyolett vernand with swete odoure.
1513. Bradshaw, St. Werburge, I. 606. A. plante, Whiche dayly encreased by sufferaunce deuyne, Merueylously growynge in her, fresshe and varnaunt. Ibid., 2808. Whiche tree to this day, endurynge all the yere, By myracle is vernaunte, fresshe, green, and clere.
1526. Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 83. A floure, whan it is fresshe, vernant & newe,… is moche delectable & swete.
1567. Turbervile, Poems, 110. Vernant flowers that appeere To clad the soile with mantell newe.
1615. Brathwait, Strappado, etc. (1878), 316. The tree sent out her Branches, which did couer their corps with vernant blossoms.
1667. Milton, P. L., X. 679. Else had the Spring Perpetual smil’d on Earth with vernant Flours.
1728–30. Thomson, Spring, 81. The penetrative Sun … sets the steaming Power At large, to wander o’er the vernant Earth.
1842. Fraser’s Mag., XXVI. 80. The vernant branches feel the breeze. Ibid., 82. The cool delicious shade Of vernant oak.
transf. and fig. 1607. Brewer, Lingua, I. i. A iiij b. Oft haue I … embelisht my entreatiue phrase With smelling flowres of vernant Rhetorique.
1615. Brathwait, Strappado, etc. (1878), 317. Let not your vernant bosome so retaine, all comfort from the oat-pipe of a Swaine.
1661. Bp. Rust, Origen & his Opinions, 89. The excellencie of the vernant youth and spring of the renewed world.
b. Freshly green; verdant.
1594. Willobie, Avisa (1880), 97. The flowring hearbes, the pleasant spring, That deckes the fieldes with vernant hew.
1621. Brathwait, Nat. Embassie, 3. Should I not … garnish her with Flora’s vernant hue?
2. Pertaining to the spring; vernal.
1654. Gayton, Pleas. Notes, iv. 211. The Trees … were so closely interwoven, that the vernant and æstivall Sunne beames could not pierce their rare imbroydery.
3. Of or forming the ‘spring-time’ of life.
1794. W. Roberts, Looker-on, III. 381. The green platform of our vernant years.
