weedy

English

Etymology

From weed +‎ -y.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈwiːdi/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːdi

Adjective

weedy (comparative weedier, superlative weediest)

1. Abounding with weeds.

   weedy grounds

   a weedy garden

   weedy corn

   • 1577, Barnabe Googe (translator), The Foure Bookes of Husbandry, collected by M. Conradus Heresbachius, London: Richard Watkins, Book 1, p. 27,^[1]

     Wheate delighteth in a leuell, riche, warme, and a drye ground: a shaddowy, weedy, and a hilly ground, it loueth not […]

   • 1871, William Cullen Bryant, “The Path”, in Poems‎^[2], New York: Appleton, page 354:

     See, from the weedy earth a rivulet break
     And purl along the untrodden wilderness;

2. Of, relating to or resembling weeds.

   Synonym: weedlike

   • 1894, Catharine Parr Traill, “Our Native Grasses”, in Pearls and Pebbles‎^[3], London: Sampson Low, Marston, page 214:

     The wild rice has a peculiar weedy, smoky flavor, but if properly cooked is very delicious.

   • 1925, Aldous Huxley, Those Barren Leaves‎^[4], Part 2, Chapter 5:

     A faint weedy smell came up from the river […]

   • 1940, Raymond Chandler, chapter 5, in Farewell, My Lovely‎^[5]:

     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.

3. Consisting of weeds.
   • 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]:

     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.

   • 1854, Henry David Thoreau, “The Bean-Field”, in Walden‎^[6], Boston: Ticknor & Fields, page 175:

     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.

   • 1917, James Joyce, “Flood” in Poetry, Volume 10, April-September, 1917, p. 73,^[7]

     A waste of waters ruthlessly

     Sways and uplifts its weedy mane,

     Where brooding day stares down upon the sea

     In dull disdain.

4. (botany) Characteristic of a plant that grows rapidly and spreads invasively, and which grows opportunistically in cracks of sidewalks and disturbed areas.

   a weedy species

   a weedy vine

   • 1614, Gervase Markham, The Second Booke of the English Husbandman‎^[8], London: John Browne, Part 2, Chapter 7, pp. 84-85:

     […] and so your soyle being drayned and kept dry, all those wéedy kindes of grasse will soone perish.

5. (figurative, of a person or animal) Small and weak.

   Synonyms: scraggy, ungainly; see also Thesaurus:scrawny

   a weedy lad

   • 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:

     I’ll bring Grace, who is looking rather pale and weedy; growing too fast, I’m afraid.

   • 1924, Edith Wharton, The Spark (The Sixties), Chapter 2, in Old New York, New York: 1981, p. 146,^[9]

     Byrne was hurling himself across the field, crouched on the neck of his somewhat weedy mount […]

   • 1929, Dashiell Hammett, chapter 2, in Red Harvest‎^[10]:

     We were about the same age. He was weedy, nearly a head taller than I, but fifty pounds lighter.

6. (figurative, UK, Ireland, informal) Lacking power or effectiveness.

   Synonyms: feeble; see also Thesaurus:weak

   a weedy excuse

   a weedy attempt

   a weedy motor

   • 2010 June 22, Juliet Woods, “We all know fast food is bad for us”, in The Telegraph:

     Everything in moderation is a bit of a weedy call to arms, but as a rule for living it’s hard to beat.

   • 2016, Orla Kiely, quoted in “Designs for life from Orla Kiely,” Irish Independent, 3 April, 2016,^[11]

     We wanted to make sure that our jewellery made a statement, that it wasn't wimpy or weedy.

Derived terms

• weedily
• weediness
• weedy hawksbeard
• weedy sea dragon

Translations

abounding with weeds

• Bulgarian: буренясал (burenjasal)
• Hungarian: gyomos (hu)
• Maori: heu, heuheu, waipapa

small and weak

• Bulgarian: кльощав (bg) (kljoštav)
• French: chétif (fr)
• German: schwächlich (de)
• Maori: rehe, tīmohea, tūoi
• Portuguese: mirrado (pt)
• Spanish: enclenque (es)

Anagrams

• Dewey