Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of several Eurasian plants of the genus Cynoglossum, having hairy leaves, small reddish-purple flowers, and prickly clinging fruit.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A familiar and troublesome weed, Cynoglossum officinale, a native of Europe and Russian Asia, but now naturalized in North America. The large nutlets adhere to the fleece of sheep. Also called
dog's-tongue .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Bot.) A biennial weed (
Cynoglossum officinale ), with soft tongue-shaped leaves, and an offensive odor. It bears nutlets covered with barbed or hooked prickles. Called alsodog's-tongue .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Alternative form of
hound's tongue .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun biennial shrub of Europe and western Asia having coarse tongue-shaped leaves and dark reddish-purple flowers
- noun perennial shrub of North America having coarse tongue-shaped leaves and pale-blue to purple flowers
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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I've dressed his bite with a lotion of hound's-tongue, and anointed a few other cuts and grazes he has.
The Devil's Novice Peters, Ellis, 1913- 1983
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I've dressed his bite with a lotion of hound's-tongue, and anointed a few other cuts and grazes he has.
The Devil's Novice Peters, Ellis, 1913- 1983
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At last I felt the hard coquina under foot; the cool blue shadow of the hills enveloped me; I slipped off my pack, dumped it beside a little rill of crystal water which ran sparkling from the hills, and sat down on a soft and fragrant carpet of hound's-tongue.
Police!!! Henry Hutt 1899
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For example, in hound's-tongue and goose-grass, two of the best-known instances among our common English weeds, each little nut is covered with many small hooks, which make it catch on firmly by several points of attachment to passing animals.
Science in Arcady Grant Allen 1873
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(_Myosotis_) and a few pretty wild flowers, _e. g._ the orange-flowered puccoons (_Lithospermum_); but it also embraces a number of the most troublesome weeds, among which are the hound's-tongue (_Cynoglossum_) (Fig. 119, _A_), and the "beggar's-ticks" (_Echinospermum_), whose prickly fruits (Fig. 119, _C_) become detached on the slightest provocation, and adhere to whatever they touch with great tenacity.
Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany For High Schools and Elementary College Courses Douglas Houghton Campbell
ruzuzu commented on the word hound's-tongue
"The hound's-tongue, C. officinale, is a weed of the old world, naturalized in the United States, with a disagreeable smell like that of mice. It was at one time used as a remedy for scrofula."
--from the Century Dictionary definition for cynoglossum.
January 12, 2011
yarb commented on the word hound's-tongue
Ha, wonderful!
January 12, 2011