different between bravery vs pimpernel

English

Etymology

French braverie

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?b?e?v.?.?i/, /?b?e?v.?i/

Noun

bravery (usually uncountable, plural braveries)

1. (usually uncountable) Being brave, courageousness.
2. (countable) A brave act.
3. Splendor, magnificence
   • 1609, William Shakespeare, Sonnet 34:

     Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,

     And make me travel forth without my cloak,

     To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,

     Hiding thy brav'ry in their rotten smoke?

   • In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and their round tires like the moon

Synonyms

• (being brave): bravehood, braveness, courageousness, fearlessness; courage, pluck, valor; see also Thesaurus:courage

Related terms

• bravado
• brave
• bravure

Translations

English

Etymology

From Anglo-Norman pimpernele et al., Middle French pimpinelle (“burnet saxifrage”) et al., from Medieval Latin pimpinella, pipinella, most likely from piper (“pepper”) because its fruit resembled peppercorns, although variants may suggest other derivations, bipinnella the bipennis (“two-winged”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?p?mp?n?l/

Noun

pimpernel (plural pimpernels)

1. (now rare) A plant of the genus Pimpinella, especially burnet saxifrage, Pimpinella saxifraga. [from 16th c.]
2. Any of various plants of the genus Anagallis, having small red, white or purple flowers, especially the scarlet pimpernel, Anagallis arvensis. [from 15th c.]
   • 1653, Nicholas Culpeper, The English Physician Enlarged, Folio Society 2007, p. 221:

     Common Pimpernel has diverse weak square stalks lying on the ground, beset all along with two small and almost round leaves at every joint [...].

3. Sanguisorba spp. [from 16th c.]
   1. Great burnet (Sanguisorba officinalis) [from 16th c.]
   2. Salad burnet (Sanguisorba minor). [from 16th c.]
4. (Canada, US) A yellow pimpernel (Taenidia integerrima)
5. (figuratively) Someone resembling the fictional Scarlet Pimpernel; a gallant dashing resourceful man given to remarkable feats of bravery and derring-do in liberating victims of tyranny and injustice. [from 20th c.]
   • (Can we date this quote?), Hal Lehrman

     Lined up solidly with the Pimpernels and with the persecuted.

Translations