laurel

Inherited from Middle English laurer, laurel, from Anglo-Norman lorer, from Old French lorier, from Vulgar Latin *laurārius, from Latin laurus (“laurel”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈlɒɹ.əl/, /ˈlɔːɹ.əl/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈlɔɹ.əl/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒɹəl

laurel (countable and uncountable, plural laurels)

1. Laurus nobilis, an evergreen shrub having aromatic leaves of a lanceolate shape, with clusters of small, yellowish white flowers in their axils.
   • March 1920, Alice Ballantine Kirjassoff, “FORMOSA THE BEAUTIFUL”, in National Geographic Magazine‎^[1], pages 265–6:

     Now large tracts of land are given over to the cultivation of the camphor laurel.

2. A crown of laurel.
3. (figuratively, chiefly in the plural) Honor, distinction, fame.

   to win laurels

   to crown with laurels

   • 2017, Fiona Lewis, Mistakes Were Made (Some in French), Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 3:

     I was semi-famous; I had been something, but as one worthy critic remarked: past laurels fade fast.

4. (botany) Any plant of the family Lauraceae.
5. (botany) Any of various plants of other families that resemble laurels.
6. (historical) An English gold coin made in 1619, and so called because the king's head on it was crowned with laurel.

laurel (third-person singular simple present laurels, present participle laureling or laurelling, simple past and past participle laureled or laurelled)

1. (transitive) To decorate with laurel, especially with a laurel wreath.
   • 2014, Cayden Carrico, A Nocturne of Echoes, →ISBN, page 32:

     Windows peered from the spaces between the columns, which rose to hold up the large portico laureling the home with chiseled, decorative wreaths and curving spirals.

2. (transitive) To enwreathe.
   • 2013, John Hornor Jacobs, The Twelve-Fingered Boy, →ISBN, page 161:

     It wasn't hot this late in the year, and the sun was low in the southern sky, bracketed by pines and nearly hidden by a tree line laureling a trailer park.

3. (transitive, informal) To award top honours to.
   • 1866, Archibald Fergusson, The crusher' and the Cross, page 149:

     In this regiment there was a young corporal, a native of Little K . He was laurelled and decorated more than many of his companions, for he excelled them all in courage, coolness, and daring. In one thing more he also excelled them — he was cruel, he was dissipated, and he was vicious in his tastes.

   • 1927, John Mackinnon Robertson, Modern humanists reconsidered, page 29:

     Not in any vision of that order did he figure for most of the admirers who laurelled him on his eightieth birthday and the few who go on laurelling him still.

   • 2010, Andrew Rawnsley, The End of the Party, →ISBN:

     He was laurelled in admiring headlines from both left and right.

   • 2017, George William Rutler, Cloud of Witnesses: Dead People I Knew When They Were Alive, →ISBN:

     In 1973, the modern papist missionary was laurelled an honorary Doctor of Divinity by the institution founded by a Congregationalist missionary to the Indians of the northern wilds.

• Laurel and Hardy

• “laurel”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

• allure

Borrowed from Spanish laurel, which came from Old Occitan laurier, which was inherited from Vulgar Latin *laurārius, which was derived from Latin laurus.

laurel m (plural lauréis)

1. laurel
2. reward, prize

   Synonym: galardão

3. homage

   Synonym: homenagem

• “laurel”, in Dicio – Dicionário Online de Português (in Portuguese), Porto: 7Graus, 2009–2024

Borrowed from Old Occitan laurier, which was inherited from Vulgar Latin *laurārius, which was derived from Latin laurus.

• IPA^(key): /lauˈɾel/ [lau̯ˈɾel]

• Audio (Venezuela):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -el
• Syllabification: lau‧rel

laurel m (plural laureles)

1. laurel

• “laurel”, in Diccionario de la lengua española (in Spanish), online version 23.7, Royal Spanish Academy, 2023 November 28