different between tumbleweed vs weed

English

Etymology

tumble +? weed

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?t?mb?lwi?d/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?t?mb?l?wid/
• Rhymes: -i?d

Noun

tumbleweed (countable and uncountable, plural tumbleweeds)

1. Any plant which habitually breaks away from its roots in the autumn, and is driven by the wind, as a light, rolling mass, over the fields and prairies; as witch grass, wild indigo, Amaranthus albus, etc.
2. (attributive) Describing unwanted silence and inactivity. Often used of a situation when one makes a statement that is ignored or ill-received by one's audience, as the resultant silence is likened to that of a desolate desert with rolling tumbleweeds.
3. A tan colour, like that of a tumbleweed.

Derived terms

• tumbleweed moment

Translations

Further reading

• tumbleweed on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /wi?d/
• Rhymes: -i?d
• Homophone: we'd

Etymology 1

From Middle English weed, weod, from Old English w?od (“weed”), from Proto-West Germanic *weud, from Proto-Germanic *weud? (“weed”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Jood (“weed”), West Frisian wjûd (“weed”), Dutch wied (“unwanted plant, weed”), German Low German Weed (“weed”), Old High German wiota (“fern”).

Noun

weed (countable and uncountable, plural weeds)

1. (countable) Any plant regarded as unwanted at the place where, and at the time when it is growing.
2. Short for duckweed.
3. (uncountable, archaic or obsolete) Underbrush; low shrubs.
4. A drug or the like made from the leaves of a plant.
   1. (uncountable, slang) Cannabis.

      Synonyms: see Thesaurus:marijuana
   2. (with "the", uncountable, slang) Tobacco.
   3. (obsolete, countable) A cigar.
5. (countable) A weak horse, which is therefore unfit to breed from.
6. (countable, Britain, informal) A puny person; one who has little physical strength.
7. (countable, figuratively) Something unprofitable or troublesome; anything useless.

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• grow like a weed
• weeds

Etymology 2

From Middle English weeden, weden, from Old English w?odian (“to weed”), from Proto-Germanic *weud?n? (“to uproot, weed”). Cognate with West Frisian wjûde, wjudde (“to weed”),Dutch wieden (“to weed”), German Low German weden (“to weed”).

Verb

weed (third-person singular simple present weeds, present participle weeding, simple past and past participle weeded)

1. To remove unwanted vegetation from a cultivated area.

   I weeded my flower bed.

2. (library science) To systematically remove materials from a library collection based on a set of criteria.

   We usually weed romance novels that haven't circulated in over a year.

Translations

See also

• weed out

Etymology 3

From Middle English wede, from Old English w?d (“dress, attire, clothing, garment”), from Proto-Germanic *w?diz, from which also wad, wadmal. Cognate with Dutch lijnwaad, Dutch gewaad, German Wat.

Noun

weed (plural weeds)

1. (archaic) A garment or piece of clothing.
   • 1612, Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion song 5 p. 75[2]:

     Shee, in a watchet weed, with manie a curious wave

     Which as a princelie gift great Amphitrite gave

2. (archaic) Clothing collectively; clothes, dress.
   • 1599, William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, Act 5 Scene 3

     DON PEDRO. Come, let us hence, and put on other weeds;

     And then to Leonato's we will go.

     CLAUDIO. And Hymen now with luckier issue speed's,

     Than this for whom we rend'red up this woe!
3. (archaic) An article of dress worn in token of grief; a mourning garment or badge.

4. (archaic, especially in the plural as "widow's weeds") (Female) mourning apparel.
   • 1641, John Milton, Of Reformation in England, Second Book:

     In a mourning weed, with ashes upon her head, and tears abundantly flowing.

Translations

Etymology 4

From Scots weid, weed. The longer form weidinonfa, wytenonfa (Old Scots wedonynpha) is attested since the 1500s. Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language analyses the longer form as a compound meaning "onfa(ll) of a weed", whereas the Scottish National Dictionary/DSL considers the short form a derivative of the longer form, and derives its first element from Old English w?dan (“to be mad or delirious”), from w?d (“mad, enraged”).

Noun

weed (plural weeds)

1. (Scotland) A sudden illness or relapse, often attended with fever, which befalls those who are about to give birth, are giving birth, or have recently given birth or miscarried or aborted.
   • 1822, William Campbell, Observations on the Disease usually termed Puerperal Fever, with Cases, in The Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, volume 18:

     The patient […] aborted between the second and third month; […] felt herself so well on the second day after, that she went to the washing-green; and, on her return home in the evening, was seized with a violent rigor, which, by herself and those around her, was considered as the forerunner of a weed.

2. (Scotland) Lymphangitis in a horse.

Etymology 5

From the verb wee.

Verb

weed

1. simple past tense and past participle of wee

References

• weed in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• Webster, Noah (1828) , “weed”, in An American Dictionary of the English Language
• (tobacco; a cigar): 1873, John Camden Hotten, The Slang Dictionary