thistle

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments  · 
“
It's the flower of France, you know--just as the thistle is the There, now!'

View all »
Definitions (60)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. noun Any of numerous weedy plants, chiefly of the genera Cirsium, Carduus, or Onopordum of the composite family, having prickly leaves and variously colored flower heads surrounded by prickly bracts.
  2. noun Any of various similar or related plants.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (56)

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

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (1)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (50)

  • The Larra makes for the thistle, the Vanessa for the nettle, the Clytus for the ilex, and the Crioceris for the lily. —  Fabre, Poet of Science
  • That includes yellow star thistle, a noxious weed that seems to be running wild in southwest Oregon, he said. —  MailTribune.com Latest Headlines
  • There is another relative of milk thistle, and this is called Blessed thistle. —  Find Free Articles - ArticlesBase
  • The third invader targeted is Canada thistle, an exotic species introduced in North America from southeast Europe and Asia in the 1600s. —  Top Headlines at CU Boulder
  • Milk thistle, artichoke and couchgrass are all safe, effective herbal remedies for eliminating gallstones without the need for surgery. —  All Categories Featured Content - Associated Content
More examples »
 

Tags

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

This word has been looked up 95 times.

stop updating
On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English, from Old English thistel; see steig- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Formerly also or dial. thissle; from Middle English thistel, thistile, thystylle (plural thistles), from Anglo-Saxon thistel = Dutch distel = Middle Low German Low German distel = Old High German distula, distil, Middle High German G. distel = Icelandic thistill = Swedish tistel = Danish tidsel, thistle; cf. Gothic (Moesogothic) deinō in comp. wigadeinō, ‘way-thistle.’
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »
/ˈθɪsl/
by American Heritage

Charts
frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word about once a month.

Recently looked up

Chelsey · post-show · pro-life · disenchanted · intertwined

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

Glockenspiel · Ersatz · Blaukraut bleibt Blaukraut und Brautkleid bleibt Brautkleid · Haifischschwanzflossenfleischsuppe · Der Kottbusser Postkutscher putzt den Kottbusser Postkutschkasten