verdure

Borrowed from Old French verdure.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈvɜːdjə/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈvɜːdʒɚ/

verdure (countable and uncountable, plural verdures)

1. The greenness of lush or growing vegetation; also: the vegetation itself.
   • 1610, The Tempest, by Shakespeare

     […] now he was / The ivy which had hid my princely trunk, / And suck'd my verdure out on't.

   • 1813, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Modern Library Edition (1995), page 142

     The five weeks which she had now passed in Kent had made a great difference in the country, and every day was adding to the verdure of the early trees.

   • 1912, Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage, Chapter 1

     To her belonged Amber Spring, the water which gave verdure and beauty to the village and made living possible on that wild purple upland waste.

   • 1952, Norman Lewis, Golden Earth:

     Through the brazen hours that followed high noon, we crept onwards through a tunnel of glittering verdure.

2. (hence) A condition of health and vigour.

• verdant
• verdurous

verdure (third-person singular simple present verdures, present participle verduring, simple past and past participle verdured)

1. (transitive) To cover with verdure.

• reverdure

verdure

1. (archaic) singular present subjunctive of verduren

vert +‎ -ure

• IPA^(key): /vɛʁ.dyʁ/

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verdure f (plural verdures)

1. verdure, greenness

• “verdure” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

• Rhymes: -ure

verdure f pl

1. plural of verdura