burnet adjective & noun. ['bǝ:nɪt] ME.
[Old French brunet adjective (see BRUNET), brunete, burnete nouns = brown cloth, brown-flowered plant, dims. of brun BROWN adjective: see -ET¹.]
A. adjective. Of a dark brown colour. ME-E17.
b. noun.
1. A superior wool cloth, orig. of dark brown colour. Only in ME.

2. A plant of the genus Sanguisorba, of the rose family, with pinnate leaves and globular heads of apetalous flowers; esp. either of two Eurasian plants, S. officinalis (more fully great burnet) of damp meadows, with ovate leaflets, and S. minor (more fully salad burnet) of calcareous grassland, with roundish leaflets tasting of cucumber. LME.

3. A day-flying moth of the genus Zygaena, typically dark green with crimson-spotted wings. Also burnet-moth. L18.

Comb.:
burnet-moth: see sense B.3 above; burnet rose a small wild rose, Rosa pimpinellifolia, with white flowers and leaves like those of salad burnet; burnet saxifrage an umbellifer of the genus Pimpinella; esp. the Eurasian species P. saxifraga of dry grassland, with rosette leaves freq. like those of salad burnet.

[TahlilGaran] English Dictionary ▲