ragweed

English

Etymology

From rag +‎ weed. Compare Middle English ragwed (“butcher's broom”).[1] This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term. Semantics needed.

Pronunciation

Noun

ragweed (countable and uncountable, plural ragweeds)

  1. A plant of the genus Ambrosia. These weeds are particularly noted for producing pollen that triggers hay fever.
    Synonym: ambrosia
    • 1916 September 16, W[illiam] Scheppegrell, “Direct and Indirect Hay-Fever: Preliminary Report of the Research Department of the American Hay-Fever-Prevention Association on the Etiology of Hay-Fever”, in George H[enry] Simmons, editor, The Journal of the American Medical Association, volume LXVII, number 12, Chicago, Ill.: American Medical Association, pages 862–863:
      Fig. 1.—Spiculated pollens of ragweeds (ambrosias) low in protein. […] In the cocklebur (Xanthium americanum) and the rough wild elder (Iva ciliata), the spicules are shorter, being 0.7 and 0.5 microns, and the reaction is proportionately less active than with the ragweeds (ambrosias). […] While the grass pollens have so light a coat that they are frequently crushed in the ordinary process of mounting, the ragweed (ambrosias) pollen grains resist pressure between two glass slides carried to the point of crushing the glass.
    • 2009 January 29, “The Leafs' Garden of Weedin'”, in Toronto Star‎[1]:
      RAGWEED (Jeffogia Fingerolia) : The hayfever king, ragweed, brings tears to the eyes of grown men.
  2. A summer cypress, mock cypress (Bassia scoparia).

Derived terms

Translations

References

  1. ^ “ragweed, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.

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