Definition of "saffron"
saffron
noun
countable and uncountable, plural saffrons
The plant Crocus sativus, a crocus.
Quotations
Usually the maximum temperature for October, November and December in the southern parts of Khorassan–the main saffron growing area of the Iran-does not exceed 20°C, while the minimum temperature reaches 0°C.
2009, D. H. Sanaeinejad, S. N. Hosseini, Regression Models for Saffron Yields in Iran, Daoliang Li, Chunjiang Zhao (editors), Computer and Computing Technologies in Agriculture II, Volume 1, page 510
A spice (seasoning) and colouring agent made from the stigma and part of the style of the plant, sometimes or formerly also used as a dye and insect repellent.
Quotations
The Irish and Ireland people (who are frequently troubled with lice, and such as will fly, as they say, in summer) anoint their shirts with saffron, and to very good purpose, to drive away the lice, but after six months they wash their shirts again, putting fresh saffron into the lye.
1658, Thomas Muffet, The Theatre of Insects, quoted in 2008, Anna Suranyi, The Genius of the English Nation: Travel Writing and National Identity in Early Modern England, page 117-118
Saffron is the stigma of the crocus flower, which is harvested by hand, dried, and sold either in strands or ground to powder. […] Of all the medieval spices, saffron was the most expensive, which is not surprising given that 70,000 flowers only yield one pound of dried stigmas. In the European cookbooks of the late Middle Ages, nearly all of which which reflect refined upper-class dining, saffron is ubiquitous.
2004, Melitta Weiss Adamson, Food in Medieval Times, page 15
An orange-yellow colour, the colour of a lion's pelt.
Quotations
These colours might have been expressly designed—by dissonance as much as harmony—for juxtaposition against those pouring down in brilliant rays of light from the Tiepolo; subtle yet penetrating pinks and greys, light blue turning almost to lavender, rich saffrons and cinnamons melting into bronze and gold.
1973, Anthony Powell, Temporary Kings, page 82
adjective
Having an orange-yellow colour.
Quotations
Now Hymen change thy saffron weedes / To roabe and habit sable: / For ioyfull thoughts, vse funerall deedes / Since nothing’s firme or stable;
1624, Thomas Heywood, Gynaikeion: or, Nine Bookes of Various History. Concerninge women inscribed by the names of the nine Muses, London, Book 3, “A Funerall Oade vpon the death of Anna Panareta” p. 123
verb
third-person singular simple present saffrons, present participle saffroning, simple past and past participle saffroned
To give a saffron colour to (something).
Quotations
To dye (a fabric, garment, etc.) with a saffron-based dye.
Quotations
The other part Northern, & ful of mountaines, a very rude and homely kinde of people doth inhabite, which are called the redshankes or wilde Scottes. They be clothed with a mantel and shyrte saffroned, after the Irishe manner, going bare legged to the knée.
1580, John Stow, “A briefe Description of Englande, Scotlande, Wales, and Cornwall”, in The Chronicles of England, London: Ralph Newberie, page 9
The same Irish, use to weare Saffroned Linnen, and Shirts; Which though it were, at first, devised to prevent Vermine, yet, howsoever, I take it, to be very usefull for Lengthening of Life […]
1638, uncredited translator, Historie Naturall and Experimentall, of Life and Death by Francis Bacon, London: William Lee and Humphrey Mosley, p. 244
Quotations
Saffroning the rest of the account are several other regionalisms: agin for against, hit for the expletive it, knowed as a preterite, and no use to say not bin' (a fascinating doubling of the negative).
1970, Robert Randolph Turner, Tennessee Legends: An Analysis in Terms of Motifs, Structure, and Style
The Nun's Priest's rhetorical devices, too numerous to catalogue exhaustively, are of two kinds: first, the heroic-historical, beginning with the setting of the occasion in a time sequence that starts with the Creation, saffroning the high points with apostrophes and epic similes, and culminating with a chase in which Chauntecleer's fall proves to have the "cosmic reverberations" required by epic standards […]
2015, Robert B. Burlin, Chaucerian Fiction, page 231