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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

valerian.

A hardy perennial flowering plant, Valeriana officinalis, with heads of sweetly scented pink or white flowers.

8 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/vəˈlɪə.ɹi.ən/Received-Pronunciation/vəˈlɛə.ɹi.ən/Received-Pronunciation/vəˈlɪ(ə)ɹ.i.ən/General-American
  1. A hardy perennial flowering plant, Valeriana officinalis, with heads of sweetly scented pink or white flowers.

    countable · uncountable
  2. More generally, any plant of the genus Valeriana.

    countable · uncountable
  3. The root of Valeriana officinalis, used in herbal medicine.

    uncountable
  4. An extract of the dried roots of the Valeriana officinalis used in herbal medicine as a sedative.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

From Old French valeriane or Medieval Latin valeriāna, a reinterpretation of what is found as German Baldrian after valēre (“to be powerful”) or also the gentilic name Valerius, which is seemingly borrowed in the Dark Age period from the late 6ᵗʰ to early 8ᵗʰ century from Turkic or Proto-Mongolic, when the Pannonian Avars were direct neighbours to the Germans, notably also present in Hungarian bojtorján (“burdock”), ultimately from Proto-Mongolic, reflected as Middle Mongol ᠪᠠᠯᠴᠢᠷᠭᠠᠨ᠎ᠠ (balčirɣan-a, “false hellebore; angelica”), composed as ᠪᠠᠯᠴᠢᠷ (balčir, “infant; young, tender, fresh, rank”) + plant name suffix ᠭᠠᠨᠠ (-ɣana), Mongolian балчиргана (balčirgana, “false hellebore; angelica”), composed as балчир (balčir, “infant; young, tender, fresh, rank”) + plant name suffix -гана (-gana). See Ottoman Turkish بالدران (baldıran, “hemlock”) for Turkic cognates.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.