flower [ME] Despite the big difference in meaning, flower and flour are the same word. In Middle English flower was spelt ‘flour’, but by the 17th century this spelling was limited to the specialized sense of ‘ground grain’. Flour developed from the meaning ‘flower’ or ‘best part of something’. It was then used for ‘the finest quality of ground wheat’, and from this developed the sense we have today. The word comes through French from a Latin root which also gives us flora and flourish (see faun).