RHUBARB

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does rhubarb mean? 

• RHUBARB (noun)
  The noun RHUBARB has 2 senses:

1. long pinkish sour leafstalks usually eaten cooked and sweetened

2. plants having long green or reddish acidic leafstalks growing in basal clumps; stems (and only the stems) are edible when cooked; leaves are poisonous

  Familiarity information: RHUBARB used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• RHUBARB (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Long pinkish sour leafstalks usually eaten cooked and sweetened

Classified under:

Nouns denoting foods and drinks

Synonyms:

pieplant; rhubarb

Hypernyms ("rhubarb" is a kind of...):

veg; vegetable; veggie (edible seeds or roots or stems or leaves or bulbs or tubers or nonsweet fruits of any of numerous herbaceous plant)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Plants having long green or reddish acidic leafstalks growing in basal clumps; stems (and only the stems) are edible when cooked; leaves are poisonous

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Synonyms:

rhubarb; rhubarb plant

Hypernyms ("rhubarb" is a kind of...):

herb; herbaceous plant (a plant lacking a permanent woody stem; many are flowering garden plants or potherbs; some having medicinal properties; some are pests)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "rhubarb"):

Himalayan rhubarb; Indian rhubarb; red-veined pie plant; Rheum australe; Rheum emodi (Asian herb (Himalayas))

garden rhubarb; pie plant; Rheum cultorum; Rheum rhabarbarum; Rheum rhaponticum (long cultivated hybrid of Rheum palmatum; stems often cooked in pies or as sauce or preserves)

Chinese rhubarb; Rheum palmatum (long used for laxative properties)

Holonyms ("rhubarb" is a member of...):

genus Rheum; Rheum (rhubarb)

 Context examples 

A substance found in certain plants, including rhubarb.

(Emodin, NCI Dictionary)

Also called da-huang, Indian rhubarb, rhubarb, and Turkish rhubarb.

(Chinese rhubarb, NCI Dictionary)

Also called Chinese rhubarb, da-huang, rhubarb, and Turkish rhubarb.

(Indian rhubarb, NCI Dictionary)

Also called Chinese rhubarb, Indian rhubarb, rhubarb, and Turkish rhubarb.

(Da-huang, NCI Dictionary)

Murder was not tolerated, servants were not slaves, and neither poison nor sleeping potions to be procured, like rhubarb, from every druggist.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

An herbal tea mixture that contains burdock root, Indian rhubarb root, sheep sorrel, and slippery elm bark.

(Essiac, NCI Dictionary)

An herbal formula containing burdock root (Arctium lappa), Turkey rhubarb root (Rheum palmatum), sheep sorrel (Rumex acetosella), and slippery elm bark (Ulmus fulva) with potential immunostimulating, anti-inflammatory and anti-tumor activities.

(Essiac, NCI Thesaurus)

She came up to me one evening, when I was very low, to ask (she being then afflicted with the disorder I have mentioned) if I could oblige her with a little tincture of cardamums mixed with rhubarb, and flavoured with seven drops of the essence of cloves, which was the best remedy for her complaint;—or, if I had not such a thing by me, with a little brandy, which was the next best.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)