Definition of "Columbine"

The Clown is a London cockney, with a prodigious eye to his own comfort and muffins,—a Lord Mayor's fool, who loved "everything that was good;" and Columbine is the boarding-school girl, ripe for running away with, and making a dance of it all the way from Chelsea to Gretna Green.

1845, Leigh Hunt, The Indicator: a Miscellany for the Fields and the Fireside, page 213

Research indicates that many children are afraid of “a Columbine” occurring in their school, or are concerned about other forms of school violence (Aronson, 2000; Garbarino & deLara, 2002; Gaughan et al., 2001; National Association of Attorneys General, 2000).

2005, Nancy E. Dowd, Dorothy G. Singer, Robin Fretwell Wilson, Handbook of Children, Culture, and Violence, page 333

Granted, I'm not exactly grabbing an ax and going to town or pulling a “Columbine” but the idea of engaging in such activities has crossed my twisted little mind and plagued my black little heart in dreams only.

2011, C.M. Dabbah, The House of Shades, page v

I remember the second song that played was “Run to the Hills.” I thought my head was going to explode, thinking we were ten minutes away from a Columbine.

2012, John Patton O'Dell, The Blue Wore Through: Collected Works of John Patton O'dell

You've got people in your schools right now plotting a Columbine.

2013, Annette Fuentes, Lockdown High: When the Schoolhouse Becomes a Jailhouse

The suburbs are supposedly where nothing happens, like Auden said about what poetry doesn't do; an overinhabited faux terrain dozing in inertia, occasionally disrupted by “a Columbine” or “an Oklahoma City” or a hurricane to remind us what's really real.

2014, Richard Ford, Let Me Be Frank With You: A Frank Bascombe Book