Tue 12 Apr 2011
What is a rose?
Posted by PJ under covers, poll, roses
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I know it would smell as sweet by any other name, but I’m wondering what kind of symbolism, if any, has worked its way into your psyche?
You can comment here, or take the poll at my LiveJournal blog.
What does a red rose symbolize to you?
- It’s a symbol of love, beauty, and romance, and an ingredient in love potions.
- It’s kind of generic. It can mean anything.
- It’s a symbol of purity.
- It’s a flower.
- It’s a symbol of the Virgin Mary and of Christian martyrs.
- It’s a symbol of the goddesses Isis and Aprhrodite (Venus).
- It’s been overused as a symbol.
- It’s been used so much because it brings with it layers of meaning that speak to many people.
- It’s a symbol of womanhood.
- It’s pretty!
- It’s a girl thing.
- It’s a guy thing.
- It’s a symbol of keeping secrets, “sub rosa.”
- A red rose held in the hand is a symbol of socialism or social democracy, and many labor parties.
- It’s the national flower of England, the United States, and of England Rugby.
- In some pagan mythologies, wild roses were a ward against the dead and the undead.
- It is the symbol of silence.
- It is the symbol of Adam and Eve’s disgrace after the Fall.
- It has symbolized all these things and more at one time and place or another.
- Ticky doesn’t know but wouldn’t mind having a bouquet of them.
- Something else which I’ll discuss in the comments.

