Meaning
A person who stays at the edge of a dance or party, either too shy to join in or without a partner; by extension, anyone habitually overlooked or left on the sidelines of social or professional life. Originally and most often applied to women, now used of anyone. Can be gently teasing or sympathetic, and is now often used as wry self-description. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The literal wallflower is a fragrant plant, Cheiranthus cheiri (now Erysimum cheiri), that grows on old walls, rocks, and quarries; Etymonline records the name from the 1570s. The figurative sense is early 19th-century: Etymonline dates it by 1820, and Word Histories' earliest citation is Winthrop Mackworth Praed's poem 'The County Ball', in the Eton school magazine The Etonian, no. VI (April 1821; reprinted 1822): 'The maiden wall-flowers of the room / Admire the freshness of his bloom'. The metaphor is straightforward - unpartnered dancers seated against the ballroom wall, like the plant against its wall - and it has an exact French parallel in faire tapisserie, 'to serve as tapestry', recorded from a Paris comedy of 1806, suggesting the same social predicament was being named on both sides of the Channel at the same moment.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- a bit of a wallflower
- feel like a wallflower
- the wallflowers at the party
- wallflower at the ball
Usage Examples
- At the school dance I was a wallflower, counting songs until the bus came.
- Stop relegating yourself to wallflower status and ask somebody to dance.
- A natural wallflower at conferences, Priya preferred the poster sessions to the banquets.