Etymology
Bellis is Latin for "pretty" and perennis is Latin for "everlasting".
The name "daisy" is occasionally considered a corruption of "day's eye", because the whole head closes at night and opens in the morning. Chaucer called it "eye of the day". In Medieval times, bellis perennis or the English Daisy was commonly known as "Mary's Rose".
The English Daisy is also considered to be a flower of children and innocence.
Daisy is used as a girl's name and as a nickname for girls named Margaret, after the French name for the oxeye daisy, marguerite.
Read more about this topic: Bellis Perennis
Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
—Giambattista Vico (1688–1744)