flour

• flower (obsolete)

Spelled (until about 1830) and meaning flower in the sense of flour being the "finest portion of ground grain" (compare French fleur de farine, fine fleur). Doublet of fleur, flor, and flower. Partially displaced native meal.

The U.S. standard of identity comes from 21CFR137.105.

• (UK) enPR: flou'ər IPA^(key): /ˈflaʊ̯.ə/
• (US, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈflaʊ̯.ɚ/

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

• (India) enPR: flär IPA^(key): /flaː(r)/
• (Singapore) enPR: flär IPA^(key): /flɑː/^[1]
• (Philippines) IPA^(key): /fləɹ/, /flɑɹ/
• Rhymes: -aʊə(ɹ)
• Homophone: flower (for people who pronounce flour as two syllables or flower as one)

flour (usually uncountable, plural flours)

2. Powder obtained by grinding or milling cereal grains, especially wheat, or other foodstuffs such as soybeans and potatoes, and used to bake bread, cakes, and pastry.

   Hyponyms: cornflour, rice flour, rye flour, wheatflour, wheat flour; beanflour; bread flour, pastry flour, all-purpose flour, self-raising flour, self-rising flour

   Coordinate term: meal (precisely coordinate; broadly synonymous)

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, “Foreword”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

     Everything a living animal could do to destroy and to desecrate bed and walls had been done. […]   A canister of flour from the kitchen had been thrown at the looking-glass and lay like trampled snow over the remains of a decent blue suit with the lining ripped out which lay on top of the ruin of a plastic wardrobe.

3. (US standards of identity) The food made by grinding and bolting cleaned wheat (not durum or red durum) until it meets specified levels of fineness, dryness, and freedom from bran and germ, also containing any of certain enzymes, ascorbic acid, and certain bleaching agents.

   Synonyms: smeddum, plain flour, wheat flour, wheatmeal, white flour

4. Powder of other material.

   Hyponyms: wood flour; glacial flour, rock flour

   mustard flour

5. Obsolete form of flower.
   • 1886 May, Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character. […], volume II, London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], →OCLC:

     that nobody is wished to see my dead body. & that no murnurs walk behind me at my funeral. & that no flours be planted on my grave.

• → Drehu: falawa
• → Māori: parāoa
• → Palauan: blauang
• → West Uvean: falawa

• bran
• farina
• meal
• smeddum
• wheatmeal

flour (third-person singular simple present flours, present participle flouring, simple past and past participle floured)

1. (transitive) To apply flour to something; to cover with flour.
2. (transitive) To reduce to flour.
3. (intransitive) To break up into fine globules of mercury in the amalgamation process.

• fluor, fluor-, four L, furol, orful, rufol

• IPA^(key): [fluːɹ]

From Middle English flour (“flower”), from Anglo-Norman flur, from Latin flōs, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰleh₃- (“to thrive, bloom”). Compare Welsh fflŵr. Doublet of bleujen.

• flowr

flour m (plural flourys)

1. (botany) flower

   Synonym: bleujen

From English floor, from Proto-West Germanic *flōr, from Proto-Germanic *floraz, from Proto-Indo-European *pleh₂ros, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *pleh₂-. Doublet of leur.

flour m (plural flouryow)

1. deck

Possibly from Etymology 1.

flour

1. perfect

   Synonym: perfydh

2. elite

   Synonym: gorbryvylejek

3. eminent

   Synonyms: a vri, meur a vri

Borrowed from Anglo-Norman flur,^[1][2] from Latin flōrem, accusative of flōs. More at flower.

• fflour, fflowr, fleur, flor, floure, flower, flowr, flowre, flowyr, flur

• IPA^(key): /fluːr/^[3]

flour (plural floures)

1. A flower (often representing impermanence or beauty)
   • 1387–1400, [Geoffrey] Chaucer, “Here Bygynneth the Book of the Tales of Caunt́burẏ”, in The Tales of Caunt́bury (Hengwrt Chaucer; Peniarth Manuscript 392D), Aberystwyth, Ceredigion: National Library of Wales, published [c. 1400–1410], →OCLC, folio 2, recto:

     Whan that Auerill w^t his shoures soote / The droghte of march hath ꝑced to the roote / And bathed euery veyne in swich lycour / Of which v̄tu engendred is the flour […]

     When that April, with its sweet showers / Has pierced March's drought to the root / And bathed every vein in fluid such that / with its power, the flower is made […]

2. A depiction or likeness of a flower.
3. A virtue or benefit; something desirable:
   1. That which is unparalleled; the top or most superior.
      • c. 1390, “Edward þe þridde”, in Sowlehele (Vernon Lyrics, Bodleian MS. Eng. poet. a. 1)‎^[3], Worcestershire, folio 411, recto; republished at Oxford: Digital Bodleian, 10 January 2019:

        Now is þat ſchip. þat bar þe flour. / Selden seȝe. and sone foꝛȝete.

        Now that ship which bore the acme is / Rarely seen and quickly forgotten.

   2. An exemplar or example of a trait or behaviour.
   3. Success or achievement in a contest; victoriousness.
4. Flour (i.e. the best part of a grain)
5. A powder; especially one which is white like flour.
6. A woman's menstruation/period.
7. (rare) Virginity; sexual abstinence.

• flourdelis
• flouren
• flourynge
• floury
• lilie flour

• English: flower, flour

  Ottawa Valley: flouer, floor

  West Riding: flaar

• Scots: flouer, flour, floor
• → Middle Welsh: fflwr
  • Welsh: fflŵr

flour

1. alternative form of flor

flour f (plural flours)

1. (Mistralian) alternative spelling of flor (“flower”)

flour oblique singular, f (oblique plural flours, nominative singular flour, nominative plural flours)

1. alternative form of flor
   • 1377, Bernard de Gordon, Fleur de lis de medecine (a.k.a. lilium medicine), page 136 of this essay:

     non pasque les flours touchent a la chair nue car ce seroit doubte que les porres ne se clousissent et de fievre putride.

     but not that the flowers should touch the naked flesh because this may cause the pores to shut with a putrid fever.

flour f (plural flours)

1. (Surmiran) alternative form of flur (“flower”)

• flouer

From Middle English flour, from Anglo-Norman flur, from Latin flōrem, accusative of flōs. More at English flower.

• IPA^(key): /ˈfluːr/

flour (plural flours)

1. a flower
2. a bouquet (bunch of flowers)
3. (uncountable) Wheat flour

flour (third-person singular simple present flours, present participle flourin, simple past and past participle flourt)

1. to embroider