flax
/flaks
/noun [mass noun]
1A blue-flowered herbaceous plant that is cultivated for its seed (linseed) and for textile fibre made from its stalks.
- Linum usitatissimum, family Linaceae.
- Irish farmers came to rely on imported flax seed because the very best linen required the harvesting of flax before the seed could mature.
- Many have abundant gardens, with brilliant red poppies, orange marigolds, blue flax, pink clematis and jacaranda, and large cypress and eucalyptus trees.
1.1Textile fibre obtained from the flax plant: a mill for the preparation and spinning of flax...
- Handmade utensils have been produced since the beginning of the nineteenth century; the primary textiles are wool and flax.
- Linen is from flax, a bast fiber taken from the stalk of the plant.
- Prior to that, cushions were stuffed with flax, cotton or other padded materials and the result was fairly deadening.
1.2Used in names of other plants of the flax family (e.g. purging flax) or plants that yield similar fibre (e.g. false flax).Travelling with them were weeds of nuisance significance, selection favouring their life-cycles to fit those of the crops or to mimic them: false oat in cereals, and in flax, the false flax.
1.3 another term for New Zealand flax.
Origin
Old English flæx, of West Germanic origin; related to Dutch vlas and German Flachs, from an Indo-European root shared by Latin plectere and Greek plekein 'to plait, twist'.