Definition of "posy" [po•sy]

• A flower or bunch of flowers; a bouquet. (noun)
• Archaic A brief verse or sentimental phrase, especially one inscribed on a trinket. (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.

• "He talked for the next ten minutes about the bauble, making a humorous translation of its Latin 'posy,' and describing in the same vein the service to a foreign state that had won him the recognition."
• "Mick Jagger, wearing a white skirt, read out some 'posy' for his drummer, Brian Jones, who had recently been drowned (not in the Gulf of Spezia but in his Surrey swimming pool)."
• "It adds very much to the beauty of a piece of silver to bear such engraving, and it is always well to add a motto, or a "posy," as the bid phrase has it, thus investing the gift with a personal interest, in our absence of armorial bearings."