Also -gar, -gaur, -guar. [a. F. bédeguar, bédegar, ad. ult. Pers. (and Arab.) bādāwar, -ard, lit. ‘wind-brought,’ according to the Burhani Kati ‘a thorny bush with a white flower, resembling the thistle.’ Thence sense 1. Later writers seem to have fancifully attributed to the word a derivation from Pers. bād wind, breath + Arab. ward ‘rose,’ and applied it to something growing on the rose. Gerard of Cremona, in his Synonymy (1481) explains bedegar both ways, by ‘spina alba vel odor rosa’ (Devic).]
† 1. A white spiny or thorny plant, perh. originally an Echinops, but taken by western herbalists for the Milk Thistle (Silybum Marianum).
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, 525. This Thistell is called … of the Arabian Physitiones, Bedeguar: in Englishe, Our Ladies Thistell.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 92. Our chaplet makers vse the floures also of Bedegnar or white Thistle.
2. A moss-like excrescence on rose-bushes: it is a kind of gall produced by the puncture of a small insect Cynips rosæ.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, 655. The spongious bawle … uppon the wilde Rose … is called of som Apothecaries Bedegar; but wrongfully.
1695. W. Westmacott, Script. Herb., 30. These Briars yield an Excrescence … called, tho’ falsly, Bedegaur or Bedegnar.
1872. Oliver, Elem. Bot., II. 171. Rose Bedeguars or ‘Robin Redbreast’s Pincushions,’ are frequent upon the Dog Rose.
1883. Pall Mall Gaz., 3 Sept., 2/1. The hedgerows … beautiful with clematis, and scarlet and yellow foliage, with hip and haw, and the bedeguar of the rose.
