Forms: 1 ʓear(e)we, 5 ȝarwe, ȝarow(e, 5–6 yarow, 6 yarowe, yarrowe, 6– yarrow. [OE. ʓearwe = Du. gerw (:— *garwe), OHG. gar(a)wa (G. garbe), of uncertain etym.] The common name of the herb Achillea Millefolium (N. O. Compositæ), also called MIL-FOIL and NOSE-BLEED, frequent on roadsides, dry meadows, and waste ground, with tough grayish stem, finely divided bipinnate leaves, and close flat clusters of flower-heads of a somewhat dull white, often varying to pink or crimson; sometimes used medicinally as a tonic. Also extended to other species of Achillea. b. Applied with defining words to plants of other genera. Soldier’s Yarrow, Stratiotes aloides. Water Yarrow, a name for various water plants with finely divided leaves, as Ranunculus aquatilis, Hottonia palustris, and the genus Myriophyllum. (Cf. MILFOIL 2.)
c. 725. Corpus Gloss. (Hessels), M 204. Mirifillo, ʓearwe.
c. 1000. Sax. Leechd., II. 354. Wyl on meolcum þa readan ʓearwan.
c. 1050. Ags. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 297/31. Millefolium, ʓearewe.
a. 1400–50. Stockholm Med. MS., 202. Millefoly or neseblod or ȝarwe.
14[?]. Nom., in Wr.-Wülcker, 711/26. Hoc millefolium, ȝarow.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 536/2. Ȝarowe, myllefoyle, herbe for nese blederys.
1503. Dunbar, Thistle & Rose, 83. Full craftely conjurit scho the Yarrow.
1546. Langley, trans. Pol. Verg. De Invent., I. xvii. 32 b. Mercurie founde the vse of Moly, Achilles Yarowe, Esculapius, Panace.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, I. ci. 142. Water Milfoyle or Yearrow. Ibid., 143. Knights Milfoyle: souldiers Yerrow.
1597. Gerarde, Herbal, II. cclxxxvi. 678. Water Milfoile, or water Yarrow, hath long and large leaues.
1612. Drayton, Poly-olb., xiii. 203. The Yarrow, where-with all he stops the wound-made gore.
1614. Markham, Cheap Husb., Table Hard Wds, Yarrow, is an hearbe called the water-Violet, and growes in Lakes, or marrish grounds.
1784. J. Twamley, Dairying Exempl., 91. I take yarrow to be an ill favoured Plant for Cheese where it prevails much in Land.
1789. J. Pilkington, View Derbysh., I. viii. 348. Hottonia palustris. Water Violet. Water Yarrow.
1866. Mrs. Riddell, Race for Wealth, xxiii. A lawn in which I have gathered yarrow.
