weedy
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈwiːdi/
rhymes: -iːdi
Forms: form: weedier
form: weediest
Etymology: From weed + -y.
Senses: examples: text: weedy grounds
text: a weedy garden
text: weedy corn
text: 1577, Barnabe Googe (translator), The Foure Bookes of Husbandry, collected by M. Conradus Heresbachius, London: Richard Watkins, Book 1, p. 27,
Wheate delighteth in a leuell, riche, warme, and a drye ground: a shaddowy, weedy, and a hilly ground, it loueth not […]
text: See, from the weedy earth a rivulet break
And purl along the untrodden wilderness;
ref: 1871, William Cullen Bryant, “The Path”, in Poems, New York: Appleton, page 354:
glosses: Abounding with weeds.
examples: text: The wild rice has a peculiar weedy, smoky flavor, but if properly cooked is very delicious.
ref: 1894, Catharine Parr Traill, “Our Native Grasses”, in Pearls and Pebbles, London: Sampson Low, Marston, page 214:
text: A faint weedy smell came up from the river […]
ref: 1925, Aldous Huxley, Those Barren Leaves, Part 2, Chapter 5:
text: She had weedy hair of that vague color which is neither brown nor blond, that hasn't enough life in it to be ginger, and isn't clean enough to be gray.
ref: 1940, Raymond Chandler, chapter 5, in Farewell, My Lovely:
synonyms: weedlike
glosses: Of, relating to or resembling weeds.
examples: text: There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds
Clamb’ring to hang, an envious sliver broke,
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook.
ref: c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene vii]:
text: Daily the beans saw me come to their rescue armed with a hoe, and thin the ranks of their enemies, filling up the trenches with weedy dead.
ref: 1854, Henry David Thoreau, “The Bean-Field”, in Walden, Boston: Ticknor & Fields, page 175:
text: 1917, James Joyce, “Flood” in Poetry, Volume 10, April-September, 1917, p. 73,
A waste of waters ruthlessly
Sways and uplifts its weedy mane,
Where brooding day stares down upon the sea
In dull disdain.
glosses: Consisting of weeds.
examples: text: a weedy species
text: a weedy vine
text: […] and so your soyle being drayned and kept dry, all those wéedy kindes of grasse will soone perish.
ref: 1614, Gervase Markham, The Second Booke of the English Husbandman, London: John Browne, Part 2, Chapter 7, pp. 84-85:
topics: biology
botany
natural-sciences
glosses: Characteristic of a plant that grows rapidly and spreads invasively, and which grows opportunistically in cracks of sidewalks and disturbed areas.
examples: text: a weedy lad
text: I’ll bring Grace, who is looking rather pale and weedy; growing too fast, I’m afraid.
ref: 1864 August – 1866 January, [Elizabeth] Gaskell, chapter 8, in Wives and Daughters. An Every-day Story. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], published 1866, →OCLC:
text: 1924, Edith Wharton, The Spark (The Sixties), Chapter 2, in Old New York, New York: 1981, p. 146,
Byrne was hurling himself across the field, crouched on the neck of his somewhat weedy mount […]
text: We were about the same age. He was weedy, nearly a head taller than I, but fifty pounds lighter.
ref: 1929, Dashiell Hammett, chapter 2, in Red Harvest:
synonyms: word: scraggy
word: ungainly
word: angular
word: anorexic
word: carrion
word: emaciated
word: gangling
word: gangly
word: gaunt
word: haggard
word: macilent
word: lank
word: lanky
word: leptosome
word: pencil-necked
word: puny
word: rangy
word: rawboned
word: reedy
word: scraggy
word: scrawny
word: skin and bones
word: skinny
word: starved
word: thin as a rake
word: undernourished
word: underweight
word: wasted
word: weedy
glosses: Small and weak.
raw_tags: of a person or animal
examples: text: a weedy excuse
text: a weedy attempt
text: a weedy motor
text: Everything in moderation is a bit of a weedy call to arms, but as a rule for living it’s hard to beat.
ref: 2010 June 22, Juliet Woods, “We all know fast food is bad for us”, in The Telegraph:
text: 2016, Orla Kiely, quoted in “Designs for life from Orla Kiely,” Irish Independent, 3 April, 2016,
We wanted to make sure that our jewellery made a statement, that it wasn't wimpy or weedy.
synonyms: word: feeble
word: anemic
word: breakable
word: broken-down
word: damaged
word: debilitated
word: decrepit
word: delicate
word: dickless
word: effete
word: enervated
word: enfeebled
word: exhausted
word: faint
word: feeble
word: flimsy
word: fragile
word: frail
word: harmed
word: hurt
word: impaired
word: impotent
word: infirm
word: injured
word: languid
word: low
word: powerless
word: prostrated
word: prostrate
word: puny
word: raddled
word: resistless
word: sapped
word: slightsoft
word: softened
word: susceptible
word: tender
word: tired
word: torpid
word: unresistant
word: vincible
word: vulnerable
word: wasted
word: weak
word: weakened
word: weary
word: weedy
word: wimpy
word: worn out
word: yielding
glosses: Lacking power or effectiveness.
Derived terms: weedily
weediness
weedy hawksbeard
weedy sea dragon