ragweed
nounUS /ˈɹæɡˌwid/
Etymology Alteration of earlier ragwort; presumably equivalent to ragged + weed, with "rag" referring to the tattered appearance of the plant's leaves. Compare Middle English ragwed (“butcher's broom”), of uncertain linguistic relationship.
1
A plant of the genus Ambrosia, native to North America and a common invasive species elsewhere, particularly noted for producing pollen that triggers hay fever.
- Fig. 1.—Spiculated pollens of ragweeds (ambrosias) low in protein. […] In the cocklebur (Xanthium americanum) and the rough wild elder (Iva ciliata), the spicules are shorter, being 0.7 and 0.5 microns, and the reaction is proportionately less active than with the ragweeds (ambrosias). […] While the grass pollens have so light a coat that they are frequently crushed in the ordinary process of mounting, the ragweed (ambrosias) pollen grains resist pressure between two glass slides carried to the point of crushing the glass.1916 September 16, W[illiam] Scheppegrell, “Direct and Indirect Hay-Fever: Preliminary Report of the Research Department of the American Hay-Fever-Prevention Association on the Etiology of Hay-Fever”, in George H[enry] Simmons, editor, The Journal of the American Medical Association, volume LXVII, number 12, Chicago, Ill.: American Medical Association, pages 862–863:
- RAGWEED (Jeffogia Fingerolia) : The hayfever king, ragweed, brings tears to the eyes of grown men.2009 January 29, “The Leafs' Garden of Weedin'”, in Toronto Star:
- The fields, being rough and stony, and wholly unfit for the plough, were mostly devoted to the pasturing of sheep and cattle; […] and in many of the inclosures, ragweeds and rushes usurped supremacy over the scanty herbage : but these were not my property.1848, Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, page 16:
3
A summer cypress, mock cypress (Bassia scoparia).
- Derived terms
25 terms
annual ragweed, coastal ragweed, common ragweed, common ragweed fruit fly, Cuman ragweed, dwarf bur ragweed, flatspine burr ragweed, giant ragweed, great ragweed, lacy ragweed, lanceleaf ragweed, minute ragweed borer, perennial ragweed, Peruvian ragweed, ragweed gall mite, ragweed borer moth, ragweed flower moth, ragweed leaf beetle, ragweed plume moth, ragweed weevil, San Diego ragweed, silver burr ragweed, Tucson bur ragweed, weakleaf bur ragweed, western ragweed- Related terms
- ragwort