Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Weed

Weed (wēd), n. [OE. wede, AS. wǣde, wǣd; akin to OS. wādi, giwādi, OFries, wēde, wēd, OD. wade, OHG. wāt, Icel. vāð, Zend vadh to clothe.]

1. A garment; clothing; especially, an upper or outer garment. "Low?ly shepherd's weeds." Spenser. "Woman's weeds." Shak. "This beggar woman's weed." Tennyson.

He on his bed sat, the soft weeds he wore Put off. Chapman.

2. An article of dress worn in token of grief; a mourning garment or badge; as, he wore a weed on his hat; especially, in the plural, mourning garb, as of a woman; as, a widow's weeds.

In a mourning weed, with ashes upon her head, and tears abundantly flowing. Milton.

Weed, n. A sudden illness or relapse, often attended with fever, which attacks women in childbed. [Scot.]

Weed, n. [OE. weed, weod, AS. weód, wiód, akin to OS. wiod, LG. woden the stalks and leaves of vegetables D. wieden to weed, OS. wiodōn.]

1. Underbrush; low shrubs. [Obs. or Archaic]

One rushing forth out of the thickest weed. Spenser.

A wild and wanton pard . . . Crouched fawning in the weed. Tennyson.

2. Any plant growing in cultivated ground to the injury of the crop or desired vegetation, or to the disfigurement of the place; an unsightly, useless, or injurious plant.

Too much manuring filled that field with weeds. Denham.

☞ The word has no definite application to any particular plant, or species of plants. Whatever plants grow among corn or grass, in hedges, or elsewhere, and are useless to man, injurious to crops, or unsightly or out of place, are denominated weeds.

3. Fig.: Something unprofitable or troublesome; anything useless.

4. (Stock Breeding) An animal unfit to breed from.

5. Tobacco, or a cigar. [Slang]

Weed hook, a hook used for cutting away or extirpating weeds. Tusser.

Weed, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Weeded; p. pr. & vb. n. Weeding.] [AS. weódian. See 3d Weed.]

1. To free from noxious plants; to clear of weeds; as, to weed corn or onions; to weed a garden.

2. To take away, as noxious plants; to remove, as something hurtful; to extirpate. "Weed up thyme." Shak.

Wise fathers . . . weeding from their children ill things. Ascham.

Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out. Bacon.

3. To free from anything hurtful or offensive.

He weeded the kingdom of such as were devoted to Elaiana. Howell.

4. (Stock Breeding) To reject as unfit for breeding purposes.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.