Flourish

How to spell flourish

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce flourish

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does flourish mean?

1. verbTo grow vigorously or be very successful, as a person, plant, or enterprise.
2. verbTo wave or hold something up dramatically so that others notice it.
3. nounA bold, decorative gesture, ornament, or passage added for showy effect.

Flourish in a sentence

• verb

  The small bakery began to flourish once it opened a second branch.

• verb

  He likes to flourish his pen before signing an important document.

• noun

  She signed the card with an elegant flourish under her name.

• verb

  Tomatoes flourish in warm, well-drained soil.

• verb

  The chef would flourish the knife to entertain the diners.

• noun

  The speech ended with a dramatic rhetorical flourish.

Where does flourish come from?

Language of origin: French

This word reaches English through Old French, where the verb florir meant 'to bloom' or 'to flower'. Its many inflected forms used the stem floriss-, and it was that lengthened stem that English speakers borrowed in the early 1300s, giving the modern shape with its tell-tale -ish ending. The ultimate source is the Latin florere, meaning 'to flower' or 'to blossom', built on flos (genitive floris), the Latin word for a flower. The figurative leap from a plant in full bloom to a person or business that thrives was already present in Latin, which is why we still say a company can flourish. The same flos root flowers throughout English in relatives like 'floral', 'florist' and 'flora', and remembering that hidden 'flower' helps explain why flourish begins with flour-, not 'flur-', despite the way many speakers say it.

How the word is built

• flour- (from Latin florere: to bloom, from flos 'flower')
• -ish (verb-forming suffix via Old French)