weedy
English edit
Etymology edit
Pronunciation edit
Adjective edit
weedy (comparative weedier, superlative weediest)
- Abounding with weeds.
- weedy grounds
- a weedy garden
- weedy corn
- 1577, Barnabe Googe (translator), The Foure Bookes of Husbandry, collected by M. Conradus Heresbachius, London: Richard Watkins, Book 1, p. 27,[1]
- Wheate delighteth in a leuell, riche, warme, and a drye ground: a shaddowy, weedy, and a hilly ground, it loueth not […]
- 1871, William Cullen Bryant, “The Path”, in Poems[2], New York: Appleton, page 354:
- See, from the weedy earth a rivulet break
And purl along the untrodden wilderness;
- Of, relating to or resembling weeds.
- Synonym: weedlike
- 1894, Catharine Parr Traill, “Our Native Grasses”, in Pearls and Pebbles[3], London: Sampson Low, Marston, page 214:
- The wild rice has a peculiar weedy, smoky flavor, but if properly cooked is very delicious.
- 1925, Aldous Huxley, Those Barren Leaves[4], Part 2, Chapter 5:
- A faint weedy smell came up from the river […]
- 1940, Raymond Chandler, chapter 5, in Farewell, My Lovely[5]:
- She had weedy hair of that vague color which is neither brown nor blond, that hasn't enough life in it to be ginger, and isn't clean enough to be gray.
- Consisting of weeds.
- c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene vii]:
- There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds
Clamb’ring to hang, an envious sliver broke,
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook.
- 1854, Henry David Thoreau, “The Bean-Field”, in Walden[6], Boston: Ticknor & Fields, page 175:
- Daily the beans saw me come to their rescue armed with a hoe, and thin the ranks of their enemies, filling up the trenches with weedy dead.
- 1917, James Joyce, “Flood” in Poetry, Volume 10, April-September, 1917, p. 73,[7]
- A waste of waters ruthlessly
- Sways and uplifts its weedy mane,
- Where brooding day stares down upon the sea
- In dull disdain.
- (botany) Characteristic of a plant that grows rapidly and spreads invasively, and which grows opportunistically in cracks of sidewalks and disturbed areas.
- a weedy species
- a weedy vine
- 1614, Gervase Markham, The Second Booke of the English Husbandman[8], London: John Browne, Part 2, Chapter 7, pp. 84-85:
- […] and so your soyle being drayned and kept dry, all those wéedy kindes of grasse will soone perish.
- (figurative, of a person or animal) Small and weak.
- Synonyms: scraggy, ungainly; see also Thesaurus:scrawny
- a weedy lad
- 1864 August – 1866 January, [Elizabeth] Gaskell, chapter 8, in Wives and Daughters. An Every-day Story. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], published 1866, →OCLC:
- I’ll bring Grace, who is looking rather pale and weedy; growing too fast, I’m afraid.
- 1924, Edith Wharton, The Spark (The Sixties), Chapter 2, in Old New York, New York: 1981, p. 146,[9]
- Byrne was hurling himself across the field, crouched on the neck of his somewhat weedy mount […]
- 1929, Dashiell Hammett, chapter 2, in Red Harvest[10]:
- We were about the same age. He was weedy, nearly a head taller than I, but fifty pounds lighter.
- (figurative, UK, Ireland, informal) Lacking power or effectiveness.
- Synonyms: feeble; see also Thesaurus:weak
- a weedy excuse
- a weedy attempt
- a weedy motor
- 2010 June 22, Juliet Woods, “We all know fast food is bad for us”, in The Telegraph:
- Everything in moderation is a bit of a weedy call to arms, but as a rule for living it’s hard to beat.
- 2016, Orla Kiely, quoted in “Designs for life from Orla Kiely,” Irish Independent, 3 April, 2016,[11]
- We wanted to make sure that our jewellery made a statement, that it wasn't wimpy or weedy.
Derived terms edit
Translations edit
abounding with weeds
small and weak