tansies

Noun

tansy (countable and uncountable, plural tansies)

1. A herbaceous plant with yellow flowers, of the genus Tanacetum, especially Tanacetum vulgare.
   • The sunny afternoon was there, like another land. By the path grew tansy and little trees.1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “chapter 12”, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC
2. (obsolete, uncountable) A dish common in the seventeenth century, made of eggs, sugar, rose water, cream, and the juice of herbs (including tansy), baked with butter in a shallow dish. "Originally flavoured with tansy, but by Pepys's time generally having spinach as its predominant flavouring."
   • I had a pretty dinner for them; viz., a brace of stewed carps, six roasted chickens, and a jowle of salmon, hot, for the first course; a tanzy and two neats' tongues, and cheese the second; and were very merry all the afternoon, talking and singing and piping upon the flageolette.1662, Diary of Samuel Pepys

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