Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of various plants of the genera Persicaria and Polygonum, having sheathlike stipules and small, densely clustered pink, white, or green flowers.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The water-pepper, Polygonum Hydropiper, a weed of wet places in the Old World and the New.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Bot.) An acrid plant of the genus Polygonum (P. Hydropiper), which produces smarting if applied where the skin is tender.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Any of more than a dozen species of the genus Polygonum.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

smart +‎ weed

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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.

    The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln Wayne Whipple 1899

  • 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.

    The Dirty Life Kristin Kimball 2010

  • 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 2007

  • Other species grow throughout the marsh, such as wild rice, golden club, jewelweed, river bulrush and smartweed.

    Chesapeake Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, Maryland 2007

  • Plants characteristic of the reserve's mud flats include cattail, marsh mallow, bur-reed and water smartweed.

    Old Woman Creek National Estuarine Research Reserve, Ohio 2007

  • I ripped and tore with ferocious concentration; dandelions, fireweed, rhododendron sprouts, bunchgrass, muhly, smartweed, and the creeping mallow known locally as -cheese.

    A Breath of Snow and Ashes Gabaldon, Diana 2005

  • 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.

    Angel in the Whirlwind Benson Bobrick 1997

  • 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.

    Angel in the Whirlwind Benson Bobrick 1997

  • 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.

    Geography of the Heart Fention Johnson 1996

  • 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.

    Geography of the Heart Fention Johnson 1996

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