weed

CEFRB1

/wiːd/

noun · verb

Türkçe translations

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In plain English

01
noun
A wild plant growing where it is not wanted.
02
verb
To remove unwanted plants from soil or a garden.

Examples

These plants are resistant to weed killers.
This weed killer does not harm human beings.

At a glance

Sits at B1 on the CEFR scale

Senses: 5
Parts of speech: 2
Citations: 5
Synonyms: 5

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

Ellipsis of duckweed.
Underbrush; low shrubs.
Any plant unwanted at the place where and at the time when it is growing.

More examples

In context

If it isn't in a straight line or marked with a label, it's a weed.
We usually weed romance novels that haven't circulated in over a year.
I weeded my flower bed.

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The gardener spent hours pulling every blank from the flower bed to let the roses grow.

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Nearby

Citations

The word in print, with each source given in full.

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
If these plants are young, the weeders do not see them; and in this case, when they grow larger, the land must be again weeded. But the small plants, which are not less prejudicial, such as the wild Fitch, the wild Oat, Darnel, Fennel-flower, Knot-grass, Restharrow, Fox-tail, the several sorts of Bindweed, (Convolvulus) and all the small Poppies, remain in the field.
1764, Duhamel du Monceau, translated by Philip Miller, The Elements of Agriculture, volume 1, page 265
One cool morning last April in Pyongyang, North Korea, I watched a woman squat over a patch of grass along the Daedong River. A large handkerchief covering her head was knotted below her chin, encircling her sunburned and wrinkled face. As a van passed by blaring patriotic hymns from the oversize speakers on its roof, she weeded the riverbank. In North Korea, keeping the neighborhood clean is a civic duty. But she was far from any neighborhood. She was gathering the weeds for food.
2017 December 17, Kee B. Park, “Amid Talk of Nuclear Weapons, North Koreans Go Hungry”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 18 Dec 2017, Opinion

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Origin

noun

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.

Deep Dive

noun

More examples

Related

Quick test

The gardener spent hours pulling every blank— from the flower bed to let the roses grow.

Nearby

Origin

noun

The gardener spent hours pulling every blank from the flower bed to let the roses grow.