: any of a genus (Rosa of the family Rosaceae, the rose family) of usually prickly shrubs with pinnate leaves and showy flowers having five petals in the wild state but being often double or partly double under cultivation
roses plural: an easy or pleasant situation or task
it was not all sunshine and roses Anthony Lewis
4
: a moderate purplish red
5
: a plane curve which consists of three or more loops meeting at the origin and whose equation in polar coordinates is of the form ρ = a sin nθ or ρ = a cos nθ where n is an integer greater than zero
Noun (1) He sent a dozen red roses to his girlfriend on Valentine's Day.
Word History
Etymology
Noun (1)
Middle English, in part going back to Old English rōse, borrowed from Latin rosa "rose, rosebush"; in part borrowed from Anglo-French, borrowed from Latin rosa, perhaps borrowed from an unattested derivative of Greek rhódon "rose" — more at rhodo-
Note: Latin rosa is similar enough to Greek rhódon that a relationship seems likely, but its nature is unclear. An outcome of rhodéā "rosebush" with a sibilant transmitted to Latin through Etruscan might explain the failure of -s- to rhotacize (unless rhotacism was nullified by the dissimilatory effect of the initial r). Both the Greek and Latin words have been attributed to a Mediterranean substratum, but this does not jibe with the presumed Iranian origin of rhódon.