[f. as prec. + -ING2.] That flowers, in various senses.
1. a. That is in bloom; b. that bears flowers or blossoms.
a. 1592. Wyrley, Armorie, 143.
| Thus wauering fortune too and fro doth pas: | |
| Worldly triumphs are like to flowering gras, | |
| Whose fragrant smels and hewe at suns vprise | |
| With liked fauor, vades ere night and dies. |
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., I. 272.
| Mark well the flow’ring Almonds in the Wood; | |
| If od’rous Blooms the bearing Branches load, | |
| The Glebe will answer to the Sylvan Reign, | |
| Great Heats will follow, and large Crops of Grain. |
b. 1751. R. Pococke, Trav. Eng. (1888), II. 141. So broad as to have clumps of evergreen and flowering plants on the side which is towards the road.
1818. Miss Mitford, in L’Estrange, Life, II. xi. 30. The luxury of that fresh, growing, perfume, a flowering shrub in full bloom, is to me the greatest of all enjoyments.
1872. Oliver, Elem. Bot., I. v. 53. Each flower [of Wheat] is enclosed between a flowering-glume and a pale.
1884. Rita, Vivienne, I. i. Beyond the wood a broad white road is visible, bordered on either side by flowering chestnuts.
c. Often in plant-names; as Flowering ash, box, currant, fern, etc. (see the sbs.).
† 2. Flourishing, vigorous; that is in one’s bloom or prime. Flowering age, life, youth: the bloom or prime of age, life, or youth. Obs.
c. 1400. Rom. Rose, 6258.
| The gode thought and the worching, | |
| That maketh religioun flowring. |
a. 1450. Fysshynge with Angle (1883), 1. A glad spirit maket a flowryng age.
1558. Phaer, Æneid, VII. V ij b.
| The bodies twayne | |
| Of Almon, flouring lad, and good Galesus fouly slayne. |
1586. Warner, Alb. Eng., II. X. 41.
| The one was in her flowring age, the other too too old: | |
| The first with beautie did allure, the latter with her Gold. |
1591. Shaks., 1 Hen. VI., II. v. 56.
| Mort. That cause (faire Nephew) that imprison’d me, | |
| And hath detayn’d me all my flowring Youth, | |
| Within a loathsome Dungeon. |
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., II. iii. III. (1651), 327. Tis no dishonour … for a flouring man, City, or State to come to ruine.
3. Covered with or abounding in flowers or figures of flowers; = FLOWERY. Also, pertaining to or issuing from flowers.
1593. Shaks., 2 Hen. VI., III. i. 228.
| Or as the Snake, roll’d in a flowring Banke, | |
| With shining checker’d slough doth sting a Child. |
1642. H. More, Song of Soul, I. I. lvii.
| The largest of all foure and loosest is | |
| This floting flouring changeable array. |
1667. Milton, P. L., V. 292.
| Into the blissful field, through Groves of Myrrhe, | |
| And flouring Odours, Cassia, Nard, and Balme. |
1871. R. Ellis, Catullus, lxi. 91.
| Such in many a flowering | |
| Garden, trimm’d for a lord’s delight, | |
| Stand some delicate hyacinth. |
