herbaceous

Borrowed from Latin herbāceus (“grassy”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /hə(ɹ)ˈbeɪ.ʃəs/

• Audio (Southern England):

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• (US) IPA^(key): /(h)ɝˈbeɪ.ʃəs/^[1]
• Rhymes: -eɪʃəs

herbaceous (comparative more herbaceous, superlative most herbaceous)

1. (botany) Not woody, lacking lignified tissues.
   • 1859, Shirley Hibberd, The Town Garden, page 53:

     […] and it contains a very good selection of shrubs and herbaceous plants, which, having good soil and plentiful drenchings of water from a garden-engine all the summer, thrive to admiration.

   • 1958 [1946], Frederick E. Zeuner, Dating The Past: An Introduction To Geochronology, fourth edition, London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., pages 78-79:

     Iversen holds that these changes indicate the arrival of farmers, the phase of Landnam or land occupation, that the charcoal comes from clearance fires; that herbaceous pollen suggests the opening-up of the land; cereals, fields; the plantains, weeds; and birch and hazel, regeneration of the forests after the exhaustion of the plot.

2. (wine) Not woody in flavor.
3. (dated) Feeding on herbs and soft plants.
   • 1861, Charles John Andersson, Lake Ngami, chapter XL, page 490:

     The hippopotamus is an herbaceous animal.

• woody