Definition of "oxlip" [ox•lip]

• A Eurasian primrose (Primula elatior) having yellow flowers clustered in a one-sided umbel. (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.

• "The only interesting point is the frequency of the production of natural hybrids, i.e. oxlips, and the existence of one kind of oxlip which constitutes a third good and distinct species."
• "In the spring the mead through which we were passing was a natural parterre, where in the midst of the lively vernal green, bloomed the oxlip, the white and blue violet, the yellow-cup dotted with jet, and many another fragile and aromatic member of the floral sisterhood."
• "They are scarcely more dissimilar than the primrose, the cowslip, and the oxlip, which have all been raised from the seed of the same plant, and are now regarded by botanists as varieties instead of species."