Saffron

Saffron - (Easton's Bible Dictionary)

Heb. karkom, Arab. zafran (i.e., "yellow"), mentioned only in Cant. 4:13, 14; the Crocus sativus. Many species of the crocus are found in Palestine. The pistils and stigmata, from the centre of its flowers, are pressed into "saffron cakes," common in the East. "We found," says Tristram, "saffron a very useful condiment in travelling cookery, a very small pinch of it giving not only a rich yellow colour but an agreable flavour to a dish of rice or to an insipid stew."

Saffron - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

SAF'FRON, n. [The radical sense is to fail, or to be hollow, or to be exhausted.

1. A plant of the genus Crocus. The bastard saffron is of the genus Carthamus, and the meadow saffron of the genus Colchicum.

2. In the materia medica, saffron is formed of the stigmata of the Crocus officinalis, dried on a kiln and pressed into cakes.

SAF'FRON, a. Having the color of saffron flowers; yellow; as a saffron face; a saffron streamer.

SAF'FRON, v.t. To tinge with saffron; to make yellow; to gild.

saf'-run (karkom; krokos): Identical with the Arabic kurqum, the same as za`faran, "saffron." The source of the true saffron is Crocus sativus (Natural Order, Indaceae), a plant cultivated in Palestine; there are 8 wild varieties in all of which, as in the cultivated species, the orange-colored styles and stigmas yield the yellow dye, saffron. So 4:14 probably refers to the C. sativus. There is a kind of bastard saffron plant, the Carthamus tinctorius (Natural Order, Compositae), of which the orange-colored flowers yield a dye like saffron.

E. W. G. Masterman