Definition of "buttercup" [but•ter•cup]

• Any of numerous herbs of the genus Ranunculus, native chiefly to temperate and cold regions and having acrid juice, often toothed or lobed leaves, and usually yellow or white flowers with numerous pistils. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "They will gladly accept the conclusion that the marvellous qualities and activities of living things and that inscrutable wonder, the mind of man, are outcomes of the orderly process of Nature no less than are the miracles which we call a buttercup, a rock crystal, a glacier, the noon-day sun!"
• "Lieutenant Peary found making gay the frosty fields of Greenland, in buttercup-yellow and orange and white; the great Orientals, gorgeous beyond expression; the immense single white California variety."
• "Mar 2nd, 2010 at 2: 37 pm kcijones001: buttercup is 400 times better than magnolia; cake is better, not great because they’re not consistent .."