weed /wiːd/noun 17verb 3forms 3phrases 1 noun17 •a plant that has come up by itself in a place where people do not want itIf it isn't in a straight line or marked with a label, it's a weed. •A drug or the like made from the leaves or flowers of a plant. •(informal) Cannabis.Hold up, hey / For my niggas who be actin' too bold, take a seat / Hope you ready for the next episode / Hey, hey, hey, hey / Smoke weed every day — 1999 •(informal) Tobacco. •A weak horse, which is therefore unfit to breed from. •(UK, informal) A puny person; one who has little physical strength. •(figurative) Something unprofitable or troublesome; anything useless. •Ellipsis of duckweed. •(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. •(Scotland) Lymphangitis in a horse. •(informal, no longer used) A cigar."If ever you smoke, my dear aunt (and I am told that many women take a quiet weed under the rose), be very careful how you choose your cigars." — 1862 •(no longer used) A garment or piece of clothing.Lie here ye weedes that I disdaine to weare, This compleat armor, and this curtle-axe Are adiuncts more beseeming Tamburlaine. — 1587 •(no longer used) Clothing collectively; clothes, dress.His mother o'er her barm-cloth wide / Gazed forward somewhat timidly / The new-comer's bright weed to see. — 1870 •(no longer used) An article of dress worn in token of grief; a mourning garment or badge.He wore a weed on his hat. •(no longer used) A hatband.[…] he was beat and retreated back to his old encampment with his weed on his hat dragging on the ground, with the loss of more than nineteen hundred men; […] — 1888 •(no longer used) Especially in the plural as widow's weeds: (female) mourning apparel.Poor Girl! put on thy stifling widow’s weed, / And ’scape at once from Hope’s accursed bands; […] — 1820 •(no longer used) Underbrush; low shrubs.one rushing forth out of the thickest weed — 1596 verb3 •To remove unwanted vegetation from a cultivated area (especially grass).I weeded my flower bed. •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. •(figurative) To pilfer the best items from a collection.She now regretted much having had the case taken to the duke's, for surely it might have been weeded to very good purpose, and no one the wiser. — 1842 formsweeded · weeding · weeds Phrases with weed weed outTo remove (unwanted elements) from a group.
