Weed Meaning
/wiːd/Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounAny plant unwanted at the place where and at the time when it is growing.
nounEllipsis of duckweed.
Sentence Examples
These plants are resistant to weed killers.
This weed killer does not harm human beings.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The gardener spent hours pulling every ____ from the flower bed to let the roses grow.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
I spent several hours trying to ____ the garden and remove all the unwanted plants from the flower beds today.
Word Origin & History
Etymology tree Proto-West Germanic *weud Old English wēod Middle English weed English weed From Middle English weed, weod, from Old English wēod (“weed”), from Proto-West Germanic *weud (“weed”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Jood (“weed”), West Frisian wjûd (“weed”), Dutch wied (“unwanted plant, weed”), German Low German Weed (“weed”), Old High German wiota (“fern”). See also woad.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"The hovel stood in the centre of what had once been a vegetable garden, but was now a patch of rank weeds. Surrounding this, almost like a zareba, was an irregular ring of gorse and brambles, an unclaimed vestige of the original common."
— 1944, Miles Burton, chapter 5, in The Three Corpse Trick:
"Some of the weeds that cause an undesirable flavor in milk are: onion, tarweed, scaleweed, garlic, mustard, pepper grass."
— 1944, Oregon. Agricultural experiment station, Circular of Information - Issues 323-395, page 3:
"I found down at the side of the house the remains of what must have once been a kitchen garden. Everything was choked with weeds and scutch grass, but the outlines of bed and drill were still there."
— 1993, John Banville, Ghosts:
"one rushing forth out of the thickest weed"
— 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 4:
"A wild and wanton pard[…]/ Crouched fawning in the weed."
— 1842, Alfred Tennyson, “Œnone”, in Poems. […], volume I, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 128:
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CEFR Practice Quiz
The gardener spent hours pulling every ____ from the flower bed to let the roses grow.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
I spent several hours trying to ____ the garden and remove all the unwanted plants from the flower beds today.