Columbine

/kol"euhm buyn'/, n.

1. a female character in commedia dell'arte and pantomime: sweetheart of Harlequin.

2. a female given name.

[1720-30; < It Columbina lit., dovelike girl; see COLUMBINE²]

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Any of approximately 70 species of perennial herbaceous plants constituting the genus Aquilegia, in the buttercup family, native to Europe and North America.

They are distinctive for their five-petaled flowers with long, backward-extending spurs. Sepals and petals are brightly coloured. A. caerulea and A. chysantha are native to the Rocky Mountains. The wild columbine of North America (A. canadensis), bearing red flowers with touches of yellow, grows in woods and on rocky ledges from southern Canada southward. Many garden hybrids are cultivated for their showy flowers.

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▪ stock theatre character

Italian  Colombina,  

 stock theatrical character that originated about 1530 in Italian commedia dell'arte as a saucy and adroit servant girl; her Italian name means “Little Dove.” Her costume included a cap and apron but seldom a commedia mask, and she usually spoke in the Tuscan dialect. In French theatre the character became a lady's maid and intrigant and assumed a variety of roles opposite Cassandre, Pantalone (Pantaloon), Harlequin, and Pierrot. In English comedies she was usually the daughter or ward of Pantaloon and in love with Harlequin. The soubrette of the 20th-century musical comedy is a version of the Columbine character.

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