Word Confusion: Flour versus Flower

Plural for the noun: flours
Gerund: flouring

Third person present verb: flours
Past tense or past participle: floured
Present participle: flouring

Plural for the noun: flowers
Gerund: flowering

Third person present verb: flowers
Past tense or past participle: flowered
Present participle: flowering

• Fine soft powder obtained by grinding the seeds or roots of starchy vegetables

Verb, intransitive:
[Of mercury] To refuse to amalgamate with another metal because of some impurity of the metal

• Lie on the surface of the metal in the form of minute globules

To disintegrate into minute particles

Verb, transitive:
To make (grain or the like) into flour

Grind and bolt

To sprinkle or dredge with flour

• [US] Grind grain into flour

• A brightly colored and conspicuous example of the flower of a plant together with its stalk, typically used with others as a decoration or gift
• The state or period in which a plant’s flowers have developed and opened

[the flower of] The finest individuals out of a number of people or things

• The period of optimum development

An ornament or adornment representing a flower

[Printing] An ornamental piece of type, especially a stylized floral design, often used in a line to decorate chapter headings, page borders, or bindings

[Slang] An effeminate man or boy (favors horticultural terms such as lily, pansy) ²

• Sissy

Verb, intransitive:
[Of a plant] Produce flowers ¹

• Bloom

Be in or reach an optimum stage of development

• Develop fully and richly

Verb, transitive:
[Of a plant] Produce flowers ¹

• Bloom
• Induce (a plant) to produce flowers

To cover or deck with flowers

To decorate with a floral design

Manioc flour is made from cassavas.

A four sifter is essential for a baker.

There are different types of flours that are best used for different recipes.

I counted up to 27 different flours.

Using a flour not specified in the recipe can ruin the outcome.

Verb, intransitive:
When mercury breaks up into extremely minute globules which will readily float on water, it is floured.

Shaking mercury in the presence of detrimental substances, or stamping in the mortar, promotes flouring.

Verb, transitive:
Grease and flour two round cake pans.

It’s best to flour liver before cooking it.

Flouring the board makes it easier to release the cookie dough after you roll it out.

I stopped to buy Bridget some flowers.

The story is all hearts and flowers.

The roses were just coming into flower.

They are the flower of college track athletes.

A young policeman in the flower of his life was gunned down.

Verb, intransitive:
These daisies can flower as late as October.

It was in the Postmodernism era that the theory of deconstruction has flowered most extravagantly.

Her talent flowered during her later years.

Verb, transitive:
We flower weddings, funerals, parties and all kinds of public events.

The gazebo was flowering in vines and climbing roses.

His flowering youth was a miracle.

1. Middle English flour, from the Old French flour or flor is from the Latin flos or flor-. The original spelling was no longer in use by the late 17th century except in its specialized sense of ground grain, i.e., flour.
2. 1950s-plus to refer to a male homosexual.