flowered

1. 1
   adjective

   Patterned with flowers, as fabric or china often is, or adorned with real ones.

   The hostess set out flowered china for the afternoon tea.

   A flowered scarf softened the plain gray of her coat.

   Similarfloral, flowery

   Oppositeplain

   Note

   A word for pattern rather than bloom: flowered china, a flowered scarf, flowered cloth. Frazer's The Golden Bough (1912) lists flowered vestments beside black and purple ones as dress barred from the sanctuary at Lycosura, ranking a pattern alongside colors. Keep it apart from the gardener's "has bloomed" sense. Flowered shoots have actually opened their buds, while a flowered vestment only shows them.

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of flower.

   The orchard flowered weeks ahead of schedule this year.

   By late April the meadow had flowered into a sea of color.

   Note

   The form does duty for quite different uses of the verb. When a plant blooms, the perfect takes have: the roses have flowered. When something is decorated with flower pictures, the participle turns passive, as in a cup flowered with violets, and that use is the source of the "patterned" adjective. Figuratively a talent can be said to have flowered, and an archaic use said it of new beer frothing as it fermented.

3. 3
   adjective

   Of a plant, having already produced its flowers.

   Gardeners cut back the flowered shoots to encourage fresh growth.

   The flowered stems were left to ripen for the seed harvest.

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