yarrow

/ˈjæɹəʊ/US/ˈjæɹoʊ/

yarrow noun: any of several pungent Eurasian and North American herbs, of the genus Achillea, used in traditional herbal medicine.

Image: Petar Milošević, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

yarrow (usually uncountable, plural yarrows)

(usually) Any of several pungent Eurasian and North American herbs, of the genus Achillea, used in traditional herbal medicine.
- Yarrow is one of the aboriginal English plants, and from time immemorial it has been used in incantations and by witches. Country folk still regard it as one of our most valuable herbs, especially for rheumatism.1922, Eleanour Sinclair Rohde, The Old English Herbals, Longmans, Green and Co.
(usually) Common yarrow, Achillea millefolium, the type species of the genus.
- The Yarrow, where-with-all he stops the wound-made gore:1612, Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion, song 13 p. 218
- “Oh, yarrow! This is it,” she said, extracting a single long stemmed ferny grass with clusters of small white flowers from the bouquet in her hand.1979, Victor Kaplan, The Woman who Gathered Yarrow; The Box; Miss Vesey's Other Leg, →ISBN, page 11
Synonyms:

devil's nettle, sanguinary, soldier's woundwort, thousand-leaf

Noun (2)

yarrow (plural yarrows)

(UK) A green woodpecker, of species Picus viridis.

Synonyms:

achillea, milfoil, devil's nettle, sanguinary, soldier's woundwort, thousand-leaf

Proper noun capitalized: Yarrow

Yarrow

A river in Lancashire, England, which flows into the River Douglas.
A river, named Yarrow Water, in Scottish Borders council area, Scotland.
A hamlet and parish in the Yarrow Valley, Scottish Borders council area (OS grid ref NT3527).
A hamlet in Mark parish, Somerset, England, previously in Sedgemoor district (OS grid ref ST3847).
A small community in British Columbia, Canada.
An unincorporated community in Missouri, United States.
A locality in the Queanbeyan-Palerang council area, south eastern New South Wales, Australia.
A surname.
- In comments to Hyperallergic, ancient historian and classical numismatist Liv Yarrow noted the absence of SPQR coins during the period of the Republic and its later use as a means of justifying autocracy while harkening back to an earlier age:2018 August 30, Sarah E. Bond, “The Misuse of an Ancient Roman Acronym by White Nationalist Groups”, in Hyperallergic

yarrow meaning in Tamil and Arabic

yarrow in Tamil

காரப்பூடு, காரமணச்சுவையுடைய மூலிகைச்செடி வகை

yarrow in Arabic

herb of the genus Achillea: قَيْصُوم qayṣūm

Examples of yarrow in a sentence

They include rosemary, bog myrtle (sweet gale), coriander, caraway, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, juniper, milfoil, mugwort and yarrow.
Because of the many small parts of its leaves, yarrow is often known as milfoil, or thousand-leaves.
Planted here are yarrow (Achillea millefolium), chicory (Cichorium intybus), bee balm (Monarda didyma), and sorrel (Rumex acetosa).

All 11 example sentences with yarrow

Synonyms of yarrow

9 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of yarrow

Forms of yarrow

plural	yarrows

Origin of yarrow

From Middle English ȝarowe, yarowe, yarwe, from Old English ġearwe, from Proto-West Germanic *garwā (“yarrow, yarrow-like herbs”), perhaps derived from *garu (“prepared, ready (of food)”), as the plant was used medicinally for digestion. Cognate with Dutch gerw (“yarrow”) and German (Schaf-)garbe.

Origin unknown. Perhaps imitative of the bird's cry; compare yaffle, hewhole.

* The river is believed to be of Celtic/Brythonic origin and related to Welsh garw (“rough”). * English and Scottish surname derived from the river, though likely influenced by the noun yarrow.

Words formed from yarrow

Phrases with yarrow

Words that rhyme with yarrow

Questions about yarrow

What does yarrow mean?: Yarrow means any of several pungent Eurasian and North American herbs, of the genus Achillea, used in traditional herbal medicine.
What is yarrow in Tamil?: Yarrow in Tamil is காரப்பூடு, காரமணச்சுவையுடைய மூலிகைச்செடி வகை. See Yarrow meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is yarrow?: Yarrow can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce yarrow?: Yarrow is pronounced /ˈjæɹəʊ/ (UK).
What is the plural of yarrow?: The plural of yarrow is yarrows.

Words near yarrow in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: yarrow (page history and authors); Yarrow (page history and authors); yarrow (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-yarrow.wav.

Cite this entry: “yarrow.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/yarrow. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.