chickweed

English

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Alternative forms

Etymology

From Middle English chykwed, chykewode, chike wed, chikewed, chekwede, a variant of chykynwede, chekyn-wede, cheken-wede (literally “chicken-weed”), equivalent to chick +‎ weed.

Etymonline claims the name was apparently applied to many plants fit for chicken feed, which were called in Old English cicene mete (“chicken food”).

Noun

chickweed (usually uncountable, plural chickweeds)

  1. Any of several small-leaved herbs of the genera Cerastium and Stellaria.
    1. especially common chickweed (Stellaria media), a common, edible weed in North America and Europe.
      • 1993, John Banville, Ghosts:
        I look at the little sprigs of chickweed trembling among the bean shoots and I am strangely moved. Such steadfastness! Such yearning! They want to live too. That is all they ask: to have their little moment in the world.
    2. Stellaria pro parte
    3. Cerastium (mouse-ear chickweed)
  2. Other plants of similar appearance and habit, including those of species:
    1. Ageratum conyzoides
    2. Holosteum (jagged chickweed)
    3. Moenchia (upright chickweed)
    4. Paronychia spp. (nailwort, whitlow-wort)

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References

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