samphire

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Hangs one that gathers samphire -- dreadful trade!

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Definitions (11)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. noun See glasswort.
  2. noun An Old World coastal plant (Crithmum maritimum) having fleshy compound leaves and small white flowers grouped in compound umbels.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (7)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

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Examples (50)

  • Marsh samphire (Salicornia spp), also known as glasswort and Sea Asparagus is a succulent salt-tolerant herbaceous plant that grows in salt marshes and on beaches. —  Find Free Articles - ArticlesBase
  • A couple of handfuls of sea vegetables like small leaves of sea beet, samphire, sea purslane, wild fennel, trimmed of any woody stalks and washed —  The Independent - Frontpage RSS Feed
  • Bring a pan of lightly salted water to the boil and blanch the samphire, sea purslane, or whichever sea vegetable you are using, for 20 seconds then refresh under the cold tap. —  The Independent - Frontpage RSS Feed
  • Join chef Shane Hughes for a "Wild Food Experience" at the finest country house hotel in Wales. forage for wild ingredients such as garlic and samphire - and then eat them for dinner, combined with seafood, salt marsh lamb and locally shot game. —  The Independent - Frontpage RSS Feed
  • A spirited carving of a turbaned Moor leading a camel charged with merchandise, remains above the water-line of a neighbouring building; and all about the crumbling walls sprout flowering weeds--samphire and snapdragon and the spiked campanula, which shoots a spire of sea-blue stars from chinks of Istrian stone The house stands opposite the Church of Santa Maria dell'Orto, where Tintoretto was buried, and where four of his chief masterpieces are to be seen. —  New Italian sketches
 

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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Alteration of French herbe de Saint Pierre, from Saint Pierre, Saint Peter.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. A corruption (apparently simulating camphire for camphor) of early modern English sampire, sampere, sampier, from Old French saint pierre (i. e. herbe de Saint Pierre, St. Peter's herb), from Latin sanctus, holy (see saint), + Late Latin Petrus, from Greek Πέτρος, Peter, from πέτρος, a stone, πέτρα, a rock: see saint and pier.
 

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/ˈsæmfaɪr/
by American Heritage

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