Meaning

noun any of various plants of the genus Verbascum having large usually woolly leaves and terminal spikes of yellow or white or purplish flowers

originFrom Middle English moleyne, from Anglo-Norman moleine, which is either a Celtic borrowing and derived from Proto-Celtic *melinos (“yellow”) from *meli (“honey”) – an adjective found in Breton melen (“yellow”) and Welsh melyn (“yellow”) – or from mol (“soft”), from Latin mollis (“soft”), referencing the plant's fluffy, downy leaves, also apparent in synonyms such as feltwort, flannel leaf, and…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0