BULLRUSH

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does bullrush mean? 

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

1. tall marsh plant with cylindrical seed heads that explode when mature shedding large quantities of down; its long flat leaves are used for making mats and chair seats; of North America, Europe, Asia and North Africa

2. tall rush with soft erect or arching stems found in Eurasia, Australia, New Zealand, and common in North America

  Familiarity information: BULLRUSH used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BULLRUSH (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Tall marsh plant with cylindrical seed heads that explode when mature shedding large quantities of down; its long flat leaves are used for making mats and chair seats; of North America, Europe, Asia and North Africa

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Synonyms:

bullrush; bulrush; cat's-tail; nailrod; reed mace; reedmace; Typha latifolia

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

cattail (tall erect herbs with sword-shaped leaves; cosmopolitan in fresh and salt marshes)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Tall rush with soft erect or arching stems found in Eurasia, Australia, New Zealand, and common in North America

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Synonyms:

bullrush; bulrush; common rush; Juncus effusus; soft rush

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

rush (grasslike plants growing in wet places and having cylindrical often hollow stems)

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

genus Juncus; Juncus (type genus of the Juncaceae; perennial tufted glabrous marsh plants of temperate regions: rushes)

 Context examples 

It was bowl-shaped and at the bottom, some hundreds of yards from where we lay, were pools of green-scummed, stagnant water, fringed with bullrushes.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)