BITTERWEED

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does bitterweed mean? 

• BITTERWEED (noun)
  The noun BITTERWEED has 2 senses:

1. widespread European weed with spiny tongue-shaped leaves and yellow flowers; naturalized in United States

2. any of numerous chiefly North American weedy plants constituting the genus Ambrosia that produce highly allergenic pollen responsible for much hay fever and asthma

  Familiarity information: BITTERWEED used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BITTERWEED (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Widespread European weed with spiny tongue-shaped leaves and yellow flowers; naturalized in United States

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Synonyms:

bitterweed; bristly oxtongue; bugloss; oxtongue; Picris echioides

Hypernyms ("bitterweed" is a kind of...):

weed (any plant that crowds out cultivated plants)

Holonyms ("bitterweed" is a member of...):

genus Picris; Picris (genus of weedy Old World yellow-flowered herbs usually containing a bitter-tasting substance: bitterweed)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Any of numerous chiefly North American weedy plants constituting the genus Ambrosia that produce highly allergenic pollen responsible for much hay fever and asthma

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Synonyms:

ambrosia; bitterweed; ragweed

Hypernyms ("bitterweed" is a kind of...):

weed (any plant that crowds out cultivated plants)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "bitterweed"):

Ambrosia artemisiifolia; common ragweed (annual weed with finely divided foliage and spikes of green flowers; common in North America; introduced elsewhere accidentally)

Ambrosia trifida; great ragweed (a coarse annual with some leaves deeply and palmately three-cleft or five-cleft)

Ambrosia psilostachya; perennial ragweed; western ragweed (coarse perennial ragweed with creeping roots of dry barren lands of southwestern United States and Mexico)

Holonyms ("bitterweed" is a member of...):

genus Ambrosia (comprising the ragweeds; in some classification considered the type genus of a separate family Ambrosiaceae)