gowan

Scots, from Gaelic.

• Rhymes: -əʊən

gowan (plural gowans)

1. (Northumbria) The common daisy.
   • 1788, Robert Burns, 'Auld Lang Syne'

     We twa hae run about the braes,

     and pou’d the gowans fine;

     But we’ve wander’d mony a weary fit,

     sin' auld lang syne.

   • 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XIII, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, OCLC 1227855:

     Upjohn wrote this slim volume, which, if you recall, was about preparatory schools, and in it, so Kipper tells me, said that the time spent in these establishments was the happiest of our lives. Ye Ed passed it on to Kipper for comment, and he, remembering the dark days at Malvern House, Bramley-on-Sea, when he and I were plucking the gowans fine there, slated it with no uncertain hand.

   • 1852-1859, Lady John Scott (lyrics and music), “Annie Laurie”, in Scottish Songs‎:

     / Like dew on the gowan lying / Is the fa' o' her fairy feet; / And like winds in summer sighing, / Her voice is low and sweet— / Her voice is low and sweet, / And she's a' the world to me, / And for bonnie Annie Laurie / I'd lay me doon and dee.

2. (mineralogy) Decomposed granite.

• Northumberland Words, English Dialect Society, R. Oliver Heslop, 1893–4
• Michael Quinion, World Wide Words, "Pluck the gowans fine"

• wagon, wango, wonga

From the original form gollan the marsh marigold.

gowan (plural gowans)

1. The common daisy.
   • 1788, Robert Burns, Auld Lang Syne:

     We twa hae run about the braes, / and pu’d the gowans fine ; / But we’ve wander’d mony a weary foot, / sin auld lang syne.