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Webster 1913 Edition

Weed

Weed

(wēd)
,
Noun.
[OE.
wede
, AS.
wǣde
,
wǣd
; akin to OS.
wādi
,
giwādi
, OFries,
wēde
,
wēd
, OD.
wade
, OHG.
wāt
, Icel.
vāð
, Zend
vadh
to clothe.]
1.
A garment; clothing; especially, an upper or outer garment.
“Lowly shepherd’s weeds.”
Spenser.
“Woman's weeds.”
Shak.
“This beggar woman's weed.”
Tennyson.
He on his bed sat, the soft
weeds
he wore
Put off.
Chapman.
2.
An article of dress worn in token of grief; a mourning garment or badge;
as, he wore a
weed
on his hat
; especially, in the plural, mourning garb, as of a woman;
as, a widow's
weeds
.
In a mourning
weed
, with ashes upon her head, and tears abundantly flowing.
Milton.

Weed

,
Noun.
A sudden illness or relapse, often attended with fever, which attacks women in childbed.
[Scot.]

Weed

,
Noun.
[OE.
weed
,
weod
, AS.
weód
,
wiód
, akin to OS.
wiod
, LG.
woden
the stalks and leaves of vegetables D.
wieden
to weed, OS.
wiodōn
.]
1.
Underbrush; low shrubs.
[Obs. or Archaic]
One rushing forth out of the thickest
weed
.
Spenser.
A wild and wanton pard . . .
Crouched fawning in the
weed
.
Tennyson.
2.
Any plant growing in cultivated ground to the injury of the crop or desired vegetation, or to the disfigurement of the place; an unsightly, useless, or injurious plant.
Too much manuring filled that field with
weeds
.
Denham.
☞ The word has no definite application to any particular plant, or species of plants. Whatever plants grow among corn or grass, in hedges, or elsewhere, and are useless to man, injurious to crops, or unsightly or out of place, are denominated weeds.
3.
Fig.: Something unprofitable or troublesome; anything useless.
4.
(Stock Breeding)
An animal unfit to breed from.
5.
Tobacco, or a cigar.
[Slang]
Weed hook
,
a hook used for cutting away or extirpating weeds.
Tusser.

Weed

,
Verb.
T.
[
imp. & p. p.
Weeded
;
p. pr. & vb. n.
Weeding
.]
[AS.
weódian
. See 3d
Weed
.]
1.
To free from noxious plants; to clear of weeds;
as, to
weed
corn or onions; to
weed
a garden.
2.
To take away, as noxious plants; to remove, as something hurtful; to extirpate; – commonly used with
out
;
as, to
weed out
inefficiency from an enterprise
.
“Weed up thyme.”
Shak.
Wise fathers . . .
weeding
from their children ill things.
Ascham.
Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to
weed
it out.
Bacon.
3.
To free from anything hurtful or offensive.
He
weeded
the kingdom of such as were devoted to Elaiana.
Howell.
4.
(Stock Breeding)
To reject as unfit for breeding purposes.

Webster 1828 Edition

Weed

WEED

,
Noun.
1.
The general name of any plant that is useless or noxious. The word therefore has no definite application to any particular plant or species of plants; but whatever plants grow among corn, grass, or in hedges, and which are either of no use to man or injurious to crops, are denominated weeds.
2.
Any kind of unprofitable substance among ores in mines, as mundic or marcasite.

WEED

,
Noun.
1.
Properly, a garment, as in Spenser, but now used only in the plural, weeds, for the mourning apparel of a female; as a widows weeds.
2.
An upper garment.

WEED

,
Verb.
T.
1.
To free from noxious plants; as, to weed corn or onions; to weed a garden.
2.
To take away, as noxious plants; as, to weed a writing of invectives.
3.
To free from any thing hurtful or offensive; as, to weed a kingdom of bad subjects.
4.
To root out vice; as, to weed the hearts of the young.

Definition 2025

Weed

Weed

See also: weed

German Low German

Noun

Weed n (plural has not been set)

  1. weed

Luxembourgish

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /veːt/
    • Rhymes: -eːt

Etymology 1

From Old High German weida. Cognate with German Weide, Dutch weide, English wathe.

Noun

Weed f ‎(plural Weeden)

  1. pasture

Etymology 2

From Old High German wīda. Cognate with German Weide, Icelandic víðir.

Noun

Weed f ‎(plural Weeden)

  1. willow

weed

weed

See also: Weed

English

Noun

weed ‎(countable and uncountable, plural weeds)

  1. (countable) Any plant regarded as unwanted at the place where, and at the time when it is growing.
    If it isn't in a straight line or marked with a label, it's a weed.‎
    • 1944, Miles Burton, chapter 5, in The Three Corpse Trick:
      The hovel stood in the centre of what had once been a vegetable garden, but was now a patch of rank weeds. Surrounding this, almost like a zareba, was an irregular ring of gorse and brambles, an unclaimed vestige of the original common.
  2. Short for duckweed.
  3. (uncountable, archaic or obsolete) Underbrush; low shrubs.
    • Edmund Spenser (c.1552–1599)
      one rushing forth out of the thickest weed
    • Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)
      A wild and wanton pard […] / Crouched fawning in the weed.
  4. A drug or the like made from the leaves of a plant.
    1. (uncountable, slang) Marijuana.
    2. (with "the", uncountable, slang) Tobacco.
    3. (obsolete, countable) A cigar.
  5. (countable) A weak horse, which is therefore unfit to breed from.
  6. (countable, Britain, informal) A puny person; one who has with little physical strength.
  7. (countable, figuratively) Something unprofitable or troublesome; anything useless.
Synonyms
  • See also Wikisaurus:marijuana
Derived terms
Translations
See also

Etymology 2

From Old English wēodian.

Verb

weed ‎(third-person singular simple present weeds, present participle weeding, simple past and past participle weeded)

  1. To remove unwanted vegetation from a cultivated area.
    I weeded my flower bed.
Translations
See also

Etymology 3

From Old English wǣd, from Proto-Germanic *wēdiz, from which also wad, wadmal. Cognate to Dutch lijnwaad, gewaad, German Wat.

Noun

weed ‎(plural weeds)

  1. (archaic) A garment or piece of clothing.
  2. (archaic) Clothing collectively; clothes, dress.
    • 1599, William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, Act 5 Scene 3
      DON PEDRO. Come, let us hence, and put on other weeds;
      And then to Leonato's we will go.
      CLAUDIO. And Hymen now with luckier issue speed's,
      Than this for whom we rend'red up this woe!
    • 1819, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe
      These two dignified persons were followed by their respective attendants, and at a more humble distance by their guide, whose figure had nothing more remarkable than it derived from the usual weeds of a pilgrim.
  3. (archaic) An article of dress worn in token of grief; a mourning garment or badge.
    He wore a weed on his hat.
  4. (archaic, chiefly in the plural as "widow's weeds") (Female) mourning apparel.
    • Milton
      In a mourning weed, with ashes upon her head, and tears abundantly flowing.
Translations

Etymology 4

From Scots weid, weed. The longer form weidinonfa, wytenonfa (Old Scots wedonynpha) is attested since the 1500s. Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language analyses the longer form as a compound meaning "onfa(ll) of a weed", whereas the Scottish National Dictionary/DSL considers the short form a derivative of the longer form, and derives its first element from Old English wēden ‎(“mad, delirious”), from wōd.

Noun

weed ‎(plural weeds)

  1. (countable, Scotland) A sudden illness or relapse, often attended with fever, which befalls those who are about to give birth, are giving birth, or have recently given birth or miscarried or aborted.
    • 1822, William Campbell, Observations on the Disease usually termed Puerperal Fever, with Cases, in The Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, volume 18:
      The patient [...] aborted between the second and third month; [...] felt herself so well on the second day after, that she went to the washing-green; and, on her return home in the evening, was seized with a violent rigor, which, by herself and those around her, was considered as the forerunner of a weed.

Etymology 5

From the verb wee.

Verb

weed

  1. simple past tense and past participle of wee

References

  • weed in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
  • “weed” in An American Dictionary of the English Language, by Noah Webster, 1828.

Etymology

From Middle Low German wêt, from Old Saxon wiod, from Proto-Germanic *weudą. More at weed.

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