Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A tall North American plant (Phytolacca americana) having small white flowers, blackish-red berries clustered on long drooping racemes, and a poisonous root. Also called pokeberry, pokeroot.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A plant of the genus Phytolacca, especially P. decandra of eastern North America. This is a strong-growing branching herb, bearing racemes of white flowers and deep-purple juicy berries, their coloring principle too evanescent for use. The young shoots are boiled like asparagus, and the berries and root, especially the latter, are emetic, purgative, and somewhat narcotic, officinal in the United States. Also called poke, scoke, garget, inkberry-weed, and pigeon-berry. Obscure names are coakum and pocan.
Wiktionary
- n. A poisonous North American plant, Phytolacca americana, with reddish stems, broad leaves, clusters of white flowers, and dark purple berries.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Bot.) See poke, the plant.
WordNet 3.0
- n. perennial of the genus Phytolacca
Etymologies
- poke4 + weed1. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“So name your poison: fugu, ackee, pokeweed, casu marzu, Amanita mushrooms, naga jolokia, or Los Angeles danger dogs.”
“Young pokeweed leaves can be boiled three times to reduce the toxin, discarding the water after each boiling.”
“For many decades, poke salad has been a staple of southern U.S. cuisine, despite campaigns by doctors who believed pokeweed remained toxic even after being boiled.”
“At River Farm, the initial attempt at converting a turfed field into a wildflower meadow ended with the mass appearance of pokeweed, a thuggish plant that quickly overtook and smothered the wildflowers.”
The Washington Post: Growers harness flames to prepare meadows for wildflowers
“They eat breakfast parked out front of an Amoco, a slanted shack held upright by gray paint and chicken wire and pokeweed.”
“Until the mid-20th century, greens such as wild onions, pokeweed and sorrel were eaten in many parts of the U.S.”
“I ducked under branches and flung myself into a patch of pokeweed, gasping and cursing incoherently.”
“Huge drops splattered on the leaves of pokeweed and burdock, and the firs and pines let go their long-held breath in a fragrant sigh.”
“Their father was home, and they ran away into the woods, where they lived like gods on pokeweed salad, wild raspberries, and tender fiddleheads.”
“I plucked a tender stalk of pokeweed from the bowl and nibbled it myself, enjoying the sharp taste.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘pokeweed’.
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Semipoisonous Foods
poisonous unless ...
breadfruit, cassava, manioc, pokeweed, stanleya, snow plant, anemone, lupine, mescal bean, hound's-tongue, wild comfrey, juniper and 5 more...
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From the Algonquin et al.
Words derived from the innumerable languages of native Americans and the First Nations of Canada. I want to shine some light on this underexposed etymological background to so many common (and som...
raccoon, persimmon, mummichog, caucus, bayou, caribou, geoduck, chipmunk, skunk, opossum, moose, squash and 84 more...
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whitmanian
from the poetry and prose of walt whitman
celebrate, assume, loafe, grass, summer, distillation, atmosphere, undisguised, naked, mad, breath, loveroot and 291 more...
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Cormac McCarthy
words from Cormac McCarthy books.
rucked, pinchbeck, cinderblock, sumac, pokeweed, frograils, fishplates, bolo, rictus, polyp, neap, flitch and 58 more...
Tweets
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