What it doesn't mean
In Greenaway's 1884 list the yellow tulip is 'Hopeless love'. The cheerful reading is a modern florists' meaning.
The name comes from Turkish for 'turban', and the plant reached Western Europe from the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century; the Netherlands made it famous afterwards.
What it really means
The tulip is a flower whose meaning depends on its colour, and in the Victorian books the colours did not agree with each other.
Kate Greenaway's Language of Flowers, published in 1884 and now free on Project Gutenberg, gives four tulips. The tulip on its own is "Fame". The red tulip is "Declaration of love". The variegated tulip is "Beautiful eyes". And the yellow tulip is "Hopeless love". Henrietta Dumont's American Language of Flowers of 1851 only gives the plain tulip, and gives it as "Declaration of love", which Greenaway keeps for the red one.
If you have ever bought yellow tulips to cheer someone up, that last meaning may sting a little. It shouldn't. The historian Beverly Seaton shows that the floral dictionaries differed from book to book and country to country, and the cheerful yellow tulip of modern florists is simply a newer reading of an old flower.
The tulip carries other stories too. Its name comes, by way of Dutch, German and French, from the Turkish word for "turban", because people thought the flower looked like one. It reached Western Europe from the Ottoman lands in the sixteenth century; in 1559 the naturalist Conrad Gessner described tulips flowering in a garden in Augsburg. The Netherlands then made it famous, most notoriously in the tulip mania of the 1630s, when contract prices for some rare bulbs reached extraordinary levels before the market collapsed in February 1637. Many modern historians think the crash was far less ruinous than the famous version of the story. "Fame", in Greenaway's list, is not a bad word for a flower with that history.
Where it comes from
Turkish — turban; also gauze, muslin
Persian — turban
Into English in the 1570s through Dutch or German tulpe and French tulipe, from Turkish tülbent, 'turban', after the flower's supposed resemblance to one.
- 1559
Conrad Gessner describes tulips flowering in a garden in Augsburg, after the plant arrives from the Ottoman lands.
- 1634–1637
Tulip mania in the Netherlands: bulb prices rise sharply and then collapse in February 1637, though historians now think the damage was smaller than the legend says.
- 1851
Henrietta Dumont's Language of Flowers gives the tulip as 'Declaration of love'.
- 1884
Greenaway lists the tulip as 'Fame', the red tulip as 'Declaration of love', the variegated tulip as 'Beautiful eyes' and the yellow tulip as 'Hopeless love'.
In real life
- A red tulip, in the old flower books, was a way to say it without saying it.
- He meant the yellow tulips cheerfully; Greenaway's list would have read them as hopeless love.
- Economists still tell the story of tulip mania, though historians now think the 1630s craze was smaller than the legend.
Questions
Q01What does a tulip mean?
In Kate Greenaway's Language of Flowers (1884) the tulip on its own means 'Fame'. The colour changes it: red is 'Declaration of love', yellow is 'Hopeless love' and variegated is 'Beautiful eyes'.
Q02What does a red tulip mean?
A declaration of love. Both Henrietta Dumont's 1851 book and Kate Greenaway's 1884 list give it that meaning.
Q03What does a yellow tulip mean?
In Greenaway's 1884 list, 'Hopeless love'. Modern florists usually present yellow tulips as cheerful, which is a newer meaning.
Q04Why is it called a tulip?
From Turkish tülbent, 'turban', via Dutch, German and French, because the flower was thought to look like a turban.
Sources
- Kate Greenaway (illustrator), Language of Flowers (Routledge, 1884) — Project Gutenberg.
- Henrietta Dumont, The Language of Flowers (Philadelphia, 1851) — Project Gutenberg.
- tulip (etymology) — Online Etymology Dictionary.
- Tulip mania — Wikipedia.
- Tulip: introduction to Western Europe (Gessner, Augsburg, 1559) — Wikipedia.
- Beverly Seaton, The Language of Flowers: A History — University of Virginia Press.