Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Anther
/ˈænθər/noun
The pollen-bearing head at the tip of a stamen.
The Greek roots
ἀνθηρός
anthērós
flowering, blooming
Literally: “the flowering part”
Follow a root:ἀνθηρός1 word
The story of the word
Before Linnaeus, Latin anthera meant a medicine compounded from flowers, and Greek ἀνθηρός meant nothing more specific than blooming. Eighteenth-century botany reassigned the word to the sac that splits open and sheds pollen. Anthology comes from the same ἄνθος: a gathering of flowers, meaning poems.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 18th century
Same family
anthologychrysanthemumAntheaanthocyanin
In a sentence
Lily anthers will stain a shirt orange, which is why florists snip them off.