celandine

Middle English celidoine, Old French celidoine, French chélidoine, from Latin chelīdonia, from chelīdonius (“relating to the swallow”), from Ancient Greek χελιδόνιος (khelidónios), χελιδών (khelidṓn). It was traditionally supposed to flower when the swallows appeared, and to perish when they departed.

• IPA^(key): /ˈsɛ.lənˌdaɪn/

celandine (plural celandines)

1. Any plant of the genus Chelidonium.
2. Either of two not closely related flowering plants:
   • 1595, Thomas Johnson, Cornucopiæ‎, London: William Barley:

     So men haue learned many precious remedies for many diseases euen by brute [beasts], as we see by the swallow, who hath taught vs that the ioice of Celandine is singuler for the eies, for that she restoreth sight to her yong ones with Celandine.

   • 1786, “From The Miners of Pherecrates”, in Richard Cumberland, transl., The Observer‎, volume 3, number 78, page 175:

     If your mouth waters now, what had it done, / Cou’d you have seen our delicate fine thrushes / Hot from the spit, with myrtle-berries cramm’d, / And larded well with celandine and parsley, / Bob at your hungry lips, crying—Come eat me!

   • 1807, William Wordsworth, “To the Small Celandine”, in Poems‎, volume 1, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, page 25:

     Buttercups, that will be seen,
     Whether we will see or no;
     Others, too, of lofty mien;
     They have done as worldlings do,
     Taken praise that should be thine,
     Little, humble Celandine!

   • 1950, C. S. Lewis, chapter 11, in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Collins, published 1998:

     Coming suddenly round a corner into a glade of silver birch trees Edmund saw the ground covered in all directions with little yellow flowers—celandines.

   • 2000, Bill Oddie, Gripping Yarns, page 26:

     The poor but lovely bird sat there, posing among the celandines and wood anemones, wondering why its wing-tips were frozen together.

   1. Greater celandine (Chelidonium majus).
   2. Lesser celandine (Ficaria verna, formerly Ranunculus ficaria).

      Synonym: pilewort

• celandine poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum)

• danceline, decennial, line dance, line-dance