Oscar Wilde
Did you know?
Our language became a smidge more prosperous the day palmy first waved “hello.” As the palm branch has traditionally been used as a symbol of victory, so did the word palm come to mean “victory” or “triumph” in the late 14th century, thanks to the likes of Geoffrey Chaucer. Centuries later, William Shakespeare would employ palmy as a synonym for triumphant or flourishing in the tragedy Hamlet when the character Horatio speaks of the “palmy state of Rome / A little ere the mightiest Julius fell.” That use remains somewhat common, and English speakers have since dug back into palmy’s vegetal roots to develop the also familiar sense of “abounding in or bearing palms,” as in “palmy beaches.”
Examples of palmy in a Sentence
Patt Morrison, Los Angeles Times, 20 Feb. 2025
Serve a crisp cookie with each serving, such as a butter cookie or palmier.
—Cathy Thomas, Orange County Register, 22 Oct. 2024
The restaurant serves meat but is known for its palmy vegetables—roasted, smoked, fermented, braised; dished out with plenty of nuts, herbs, seeds, and cheeses.
—Jo Rodgers, Vogue, 3 May 2024
In palmier times, the leader of the Wagner group, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, appeared at a Russian cultural center in the capital of the Central African Republic, sitting with schoolchildren and promising them free laptops.
—Elian Peltier Jim Huylebroek, New York Times, 26 Nov. 2023
Painters draw them against tropical, palmy backgrounds.
—Terrence McCoy, Washington Post, 23 Nov. 2023
In the century that followed, Carter’s house was turned into a museum with a green, palmy garden, thanks to water brought in from the Nile.
—Vivian Yee, BostonGlobe.com, 12 Nov. 2022
Remember those palmy days when conservative conspiracy theorists outside elective politics spread the word that Democrats wanted to molest your children?
—Timothy Noah, The New Republic, 13 May 2022
Cite this Entry
“Palmy.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/palmy. Accessed 9 Nov. 2025.
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