hollyhock
noun /ˈhɒlihɒk/
/ˈhɑːlihɑːk/
- a tall garden plant with white, yellow, red or purple flowers growing up its stemWord OriginMiddle English: from holy + obsolete hock ‘mallow’, of unknown origin. It originally denoted the marsh mallow which has medicinal uses (hence, perhaps, the use of ‘holy’); the current sense dates from the mid 16th cent.