WEED (weed)

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

Irregular inflected form: weed   

 Dictionary entry overview: What does weed mean? 

• WEED (noun)
  The noun WEED has 3 senses:

1. any plant that crowds out cultivated plants

2. a black band worn by a man (on the arm or hat) as a sign of mourning

3. street names for marijuana

  Familiarity information: WEED used as a noun is uncommon.

• WEED (verb)
  The verb WEED has 1 sense:

1. clear of weeds

  Familiarity information: WEED used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• WEED (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Any plant that crowds out cultivated plants

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

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

tracheophyte; vascular plant (green plant having a vascular system: ferns, gymnosperms, angiosperms)

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

knawe; knawel; Scleranthus annuus (widely distributed low-growing Eurasian herb having narrow leaves and inconspicuous green flowers)

madnep; wild parsnip (biennial weed in Europe and America having large pinnate leaves and yellow flowers and a bitter and somewhat poisonous root; the ancestor of cultivated parsnip)

tumbleweed (any plant that breaks away from its roots in autumn and is driven by the wind as a light rolling mass)

nettle (any of numerous plants having stinging hairs that cause skin irritation on contact (especially of the genus Urtica or family Urticaceae))

cockle-bur; cockle-burr; cocklebur; cockleburr (any coarse weed of the genus Xanthium having spiny burrs)

groundsel; Senecio vulgaris (Eurasian weed with heads of small yellow flowers)

benweed; ragweed; ragwort; Senecio jacobaea; tansy ragwort (widespread European weed having yellow daisylike flowers; sometimes an obnoxious weed and toxic to cattle if consumed in quantity)

Senecio doublasii; threadleaf groundsel (bluish-green bushy leafy plant covered with close white wool and bearing branched clusters of yellow flower heads; southwestern United States; toxic to range livestock)

Hieracium aurantiacum; orange hawkweed; Pilosella aurantiaca (European hawkweed having flower heads with bright orange-red rays; a troublesome weed especially as naturalized in northeastern North America; sometimes placed in genus Hieracium)

bitterweed; bristly oxtongue; bugloss; oxtongue; Picris echioides (widespread European weed with spiny tongue-shaped leaves and yellow flowers; naturalized in United States)

bastard feverfew; Parthenium hysterophorus (tropical American annual weed with small radiate heads of white flowers; adventive in southern United States)

California dandelion; capeweed; cat's-ear; gosmore; Hypochaeris radicata (European weed widely naturalized in North America having yellow flower heads and leaves resembling a cat's ears)

Hieracium praealtum; king devil; yellow hawkweed (European hawkweed introduced into northeastern United States; locally troublesome weeds)

Erechtites hieracifolia; fireweed (an American weedy plant with small white or greenish flowers)

Canadian fleabane; Conyza canadensis; Erigeron canadensis; fleabane; horseweed (common North American weed with linear leaves and small discoid heads of yellowish flowers; widely naturalized throughout temperate regions; sometimes placed in genus Erigeron)

Barnaby's thistle; Centaurea solstitialis; yellow star-thistle (European weed having a winged stem and hairy leaves; adventive in the eastern United States)

thistle (any of numerous plants of the family Compositae and especially of the genera Carduus and Cirsium and Onopordum having prickly-edged leaves)

ambrosia; bitterweed; ragweed (any of numerous chiefly North American weedy plants constituting the genus Ambrosia that produce highly allergenic pollen responsible for much hay fever and asthma)

pennycress (any of several plants of the genus Thlaspi)

jointed charlock; Raphanus raphanistrum; runch; wild radish; wild rape (Eurasian weed having yellow or mauve or white flowers and podlike fruits)

Erysimum cheiranthoides; wormseed mustard (slender yellow-flowered European mustard often troublesome as a weed; formerly used as an anthelmintic)

Barbarea vulgaris; rockcress; rocket cress; Sisymbrium barbarea; yellow rocket (noxious cress with yellow flowers; sometimes placed in genus Sisymbrium)

alligator grass; alligator weed; Alternanthera philoxeroides (prolific South American aquatic weed having grasslike leaves and short spikes of white flowers; clogs waterways with dense floating masses)

carpetweed; Indian chickweed; Molluga verticillata (annual prostrate mat-forming weed having whorled leaves and small greenish-white flowers; widespread throughout North America)

sand spurry; sea spurry; Spergularia rubra (prostrate weedy herb with tiny pink flowers; widespread throughout Europe and Asia on sand dunes and heath and coastal cliffs; naturalized in eastern North America)

corn spurrey; corn spurry; Spergula arvensis (small European weed with whorled leaves and white flowers)

Agrostemma githago; corn campion; corn cockle; crown-of-the-field (European annual having large trumpet-shaped reddish-purple flowers and poisonous seed; a common weed in grainfields and beside roadways; naturalized in America)

Antonym:

cultivated plant (plants that are grown for their produce)

Derivation:

weed (clear of weeds)

weedy (abounding with or resembling weeds)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A black band worn by a man (on the arm or hat) as a sign of mourning

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

mourning band; weed

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

band (a thin flat strip of flexible material that is worn around the body or one of the limbs (especially to decorate the body))

Sense 3

Meaning:

Street names for marijuana

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

dope; gage; grass; green goddess; locoweed; Mary Jane; pot; sens; sess; skunk; smoke; weed

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

cannabis; ganja; marihuana; marijuana (the most commonly used illicit drug; considered a soft drug, it consists of the dried leaves of the hemp plant; smoked or chewed for euphoric effect)

• WEED (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they weed    ... he / she / it weeds   
Past simple: weeded   
Past participle: weeded   
-ing form: weeding   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Clear of weeds

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Context example:

weed the garden

Hypernyms (to "weed" is one way to...):

remove; take; take away; withdraw (remove something concrete, as by lifting, pushing, or taking off, or remove something abstract)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "weed"):

stub (clear of weeds by uprooting them)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s PP

Derivation:

weed (any plant that crowds out cultivated plants)

weeder (a hand tool for removing weeds)

weeder (a farmhand hired to remove weeds)

 Context examples 

Each spring, summer, and fall, trees, weeds, and grasses release tiny pollen grains into the air.

(Hay Fever, NIH: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases)

The compound sorgoleone, secreted by sorghum, helps the plant combat weeds.

(Transferring Sorghum’s Weed-Killing Power to Rice, U.S. Department of Agriculture)

A poisonous chemical used to kill weeds and pests.

(Arsenic, NCI Dictionary)

In the treatment with reduced fertiliser and mechanical weeding, the harvest was not different from the conventional treatments.

(Greener palm oil possible without sacrificing profit, SciDev.Net)

Notwithstanding the lapse of time that had occurred since Mr. Heep's decease, she still wore weeds.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

They also include chemicals to control weeds, rodents, mildew, germs, and more.

(Pesticides, Environmental Protection Agency)

Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The researchers found that there are many areas of the genome that define each species, and these are maintained by natural selection, which weeds out the foreign genes.

(Butterflies are genetically wired to choose a mate that looks just like them, University of Cambridge)

Dill weed oil is used as treatment for digestive complaints.

(Dill Weed Oil, NCI Thesaurus)

In many parts of the United States it is considered a noxious weed.

(Hypericum perforatum, NCI Thesaurus)