flourish: [13] To flourish is etymologically to ‘flower’ – and indeed ‘come into flower, bloom’ is originally what the verb literally meant in English: ‘to smell the sweet savour of the vine when it flourisheth’, Geoffrey Chaucer, Parson’s Tale 1386. The metaphorical ‘thrive’ developed in the 14th century. The word comes from Old French floriss-, the stem of florir ‘bloom’, which goes back via Vulgar Latin *florīre to classical Latin florēre, a derivative of flōs ‘flower’. => flower
