triffid

Meaning

Noun

• A fictional plant, able to move around and kill people with a poisonous stinger
• Any of the anemones of the genus Aiptasia with poisonous tentacles, which are a pest in aquaria.
• Any large, fast-growing and hard-to-remove weed, such as the flowering shrub Chromolaena odorata (species).

Origin

• Coined by John Wyndham for his 1951 novel The Day of the Triffids, by alteration of the botanical term trifid.