From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishheatherheath‧er /ˈheðə $ -ər/ noun [uncountable] DNHBPa low plant with small purple, pink, or white flowers which grows on hills
Examples from the Corpus
heather• I wasn't myself in the heather that night.• Billy's short legs kept getting tangled in the heather, so he bounced along like a kangaroo through the springy tufts.• His drive went low up the right side of the fairway and faded impotently into the heather.• The blade plunged on into the heather at the side of the track.• On the hillsides all around, the sun-dazzling orange of the bracken against the black of the heather startled the eye.• We carried on walking northwards following sheep tracks through the heather and rock outcrops.• The heather, purple now, they went into ecstasies over.• A dark, intense, semi-smiling stare, as if the sprig of white heather was not charity but compulsory.Origin heather (1700-1800) Northern and Scottish English haddir, hathir ((14-18 centuries)); influenced by heath 