weed

Meanings

Noun

• Any plant regarded as unwanted at the place where, and at the time when it is growing.
• Underbrush; low shrubs.
• A drug or the like made from the leaves of a plant.
• A weak horse, which is therefore unfit to breed from.
• A puny person; one who has little physical strength.
• Something unprofitable or troublesome; anything useless.
• A garment or piece of clothing.
• Clothing collectively; clothes, dress.
• An article of dress worn in token of grief; a mourning garment or badge.
• Especially in the plural as widow's weeds: (female) mourning apparel.
• 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.
• Lymphangitis in a horse.

Verb

• To remove unwanted vegetation from a cultivated area.
• To systematically remove materials from a library collection based on a set of criteria.
• Past of wee

Origin

• From Middle English weed, weod, from Old English wēod ("weed"), from Proto-West Germanic *weud. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Jood, West Frisian wjûd, Dutch wied, German Low German Weed, Old High German wiota. See also woad.
• From Middle English weeden, weden, from Old English wēodian, from Proto-Germanic *weudōną. Cognate with West Frisian wjûde, wjudde,
• Dutch wieden, German Low German weden.
• From Middle English wede, from Old English wǣd, from Proto-Germanic *wēdiz, from which also wad, wadmal. Cognate with Dutch lijnwaad, Dutch gewaad, German Wat.
• From Scots weid. The longer form weidinonfa (Old Scots wedonynpha) is attested since the 1500s. Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language analyses the longer form as a compound meaning "onfa(ll) of a weed", whereas the Scottish National Dictionary/DSL considers the short form a derivative of the longer form, and derives its first element from Old English wēdan, from wōd.
• From the verb wee.