weeds

«weeds» in Mova's school dictionary: wild plants that grow where people do not want them, such… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun, plural (weeds; singular: weed); verb form of «weed» (weeds)

meaning for a pupil

1) Weeds are wild plants that grow where people do not want them, such as in gardens, lawns or fields, and take light, water and space from the plants people want. tree →

2) «Weeds» is the he/she form of the verb «weed»: «she weeds the garden» means she pulls out the weeds. tree →

3) Water weeds or seaweeds are plants that grow in water. tree →

sense in the lessons

In science lessons pupils learn that weeds compete with crops for light, water and nutrients, and that one gardener's weed (a dandelion, clover) is food for bees and other wildlife. In everyday life children help «pull up weeds» or «do the weeding». Phrases: «pull up the weeds», «overgrown with weeds», «weed out» (remove the bad ones).

examples

• The garden is full of weeds. tree →
• We pulled up the weeds from the vegetable patch. tree →
• Dandelions are weeds, but bees love them. tree →
• Weeds grew between the paving stones. tree →
• Grandpa weeds his garden every Saturday. tree →
• The pond is choked with weeds. tree →
• Weeds take water from the plants we want. tree →
• It was in a corner that he lay, among weeds and nettles. tree →

note

Singular: weed. «Weed out» = remove unwanted things («weed out the mistakes»). «Weed» is also slang for cannabis, a drug — a different meaning. A weed is not a special kind of plant — it is any plant in the wrong place.

In the corpora

• A week or so later, long strings of eggs wound round the weeds in deeper water show that toads have come too.
• Flooded paddy fields, built as steps on hills, drown many weeds that cannot cope.
• All real tea, green or black, comes from one plant, and rice grows in flooded fields that drown weeds.
• Hay fever is an allergy to pollen from grass, trees or weeds, and you cannot catch it from anyone.
• Jesus said the thorns stand for worries and the love of riches, which choke the good word like weeds.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «weeds» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.