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Eglantine

(Science: botany) a species of rose (rosa Eglanteria), with fragrant foliage and flowers of various colours.

The sweetbrier (R. Rubiginosa).

milton, in the following lines, has applied the name to some twinning plant, perhaps the honeysuckle. Through the sweetbrier, or the vine, or the twisted eglantine. (L'Allegro, 47) In our early writers and in Gerarde and the herbalists, it was a shrub with white flowers.

Origin: f. Eglantine, fr. OF. Aiglent brier, hip tree, fr. (assumed) LL. Acuculentus, fr. A dim. Of L. Acus needle; cf. F. Aiguille needle. Cf. Aglet.