Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Any of various marsh plants of the genus Polygonum, having sheathlike stipules and small, densely clustered pink, white, or green flowers.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The water-pepper, Polygonum Hydropiper, a weed of wet places in the Old World and the New. It is acrid to the taste, and inflames the skin when applied to tender parts. It has diuretic and, as claimed, some other medicinal properties. Old or provincial names are arse-smart and culrage. The name extends more or less to similar species. Also
smart-grass .
Wiktionary
- n. Any of more than a dozen species of the genus Polygonum.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Bot.) An acrid plant of the genus Polygonum (P. Hydropiper), which produces smarting if applied where the skin is tender.
Etymologies
- smart + weed (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Throwing the man on the ground, Lincoln sat on him, and, with his long arms, gathered a handful of "smartweed" which grew around them.”
“There was crafty smartweed, the plotting intellectual; purslane, the Trojan horse, who rode into the fields on our tools and grew into a formidable foe.”
“Plants characteristic of the reserve's mud flats include cattail, marsh mallow, bur-reed and water smartweed.”
“This along with other seed-bearing plants such as water millet and smartweed, is food for as many as 25,000 waterfowl during winter months.”
Chesapeake Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, Maryland
“Other species grow throughout the marsh, such as wild rice, golden club, jewelweed, river bulrush and smartweed.”
Chesapeake Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, Maryland
“I ripped and tore with ferocious concentration; dandelions, fireweed, rhododendron sprouts, bunchgrass, muhly, smartweed, and the creeping mallow known locally as -cheese.”
“A salve made of lard, resin, and beeswax was used to soothe burns; smartweed steeped in vinegar was applied to bruises; lard mixed with the leaves of the green bean yielded an ointment for open sores.”
“I watched and then went outside, to see my knobs in a new light: swarming with mosquitoes and smartweed, peopled with yokels, demanding everlasting labor to produce not oranges and melons and the glamour of Hollywood, but demon booze and tobacco, that evil weed.”
“Where the skin is poisoned, use a wash of smartweed steeped in water, or mix soot and cream, and apply it frequently; bruised Jamestown weed and cream is also good.”
Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers
“This morning as I parked my vehicle by this building I picked these specimens from the smartweed, ~Polygonum persicaria~.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘smartweed’.
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Flora
fenugreek, verbena, saxifrage, arbutus, calendula, nasturtium, lobelia, hellebore, rhododendron, philodendron, bellflower, heuchera and 449 more...
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Outlander series words
A place for me to keep words I found (or found anew) while reading Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series. (Culling my enormous "Learned (or Encountered) in Reading" list.)
gralloch, yeuk, corpse-candle, saprophytic, baldachin, Kermanshah, celandine, tynchal, quaich, mesentery, basidium, dittany and 244 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for smartweed.
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