Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of various densely branched annual plants, such as Russian thistle and several species of amaranth, that break off from the roots at the end of the growing season and are rolled about by the wind.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A branching plant whose top assumes a globular figure and in autumn is detached and rolled over the plains by the wind, scattering its seed.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Bot.) Any plant which habitually breaks away from its roots in the autumn, and is driven by the wind, as a light, rolling mass, over the fields and prairies; such as witch grass, wild indigo,
Amarantus albus , etc.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Any plant which habitually breaks away from its roots in the autumn, and is driven by the wind, as a light, rolling mass, over the fields and prairies; as
witch grass , wildindigo , Amaranthus albus, etc. - adjective Describing unwanted silence and inactivity. Often used of a situation when one makes a statement that is ignored or ill-received from one’s audience. Gives the impression that a tumbleweed has passed through the room, as the resultant silence is likened to that of a desolate desert.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun prickly bushy Eurasian plant; a troublesome weed in central and western United States
- noun any plant that breaks away from its roots in autumn and is driven by the wind as a light rolling mass
- noun bushy plant of western United States
- noun bushy annual weed of central North America having greenish flowers and winged seeds
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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Washington: Well, I definitely know what a tumbleweed is now and I know what a windstorm is.
Denzel Washington Interview THE BOOK OF ELI – Collider.com 2009
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The alien Russian-thistle, also know as tumbleweed, is sometimes abundant.
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The idea was to instill pride: the Soviets were first in space, that kingdom of heaven, first to explore Alaska, the first in tumbleweed, that is, Russian thistle, et cetera, et cetera.
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The idea was to instill pride: the Soviets were first in space, that kingdom of heaven, first to explore Alaska, the first in tumbleweed, that is, Russian thistle, et cetera, et cetera.
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The latter reminds me of the NASA "tumbleweed" rover for exploring mars:
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Joe Friday would think that 'tumbleweed' is a synonym for Mary
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Because there’s a kind of tumbleweed feel to my Friends List these days, as people migrate to Twitter (and “ship” their inconsequential tweets back to the old haunt as if to place a big “Nothing to see here folks!” sign over both locations) or Facebook.
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Yeah, downtown can get kind of tumbleweed-ish after dark sometimes but it’s not the post-apocalyptic Night of the Living Dead that a lot of “meh”ers make it out to be.
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'tumbleweed' bags with all natural black hair gathered at ghetto salons, to hawk to wig makers.
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"I want to do something about indiscipline... cue: tumbleweed"
Ewan McIntosh: Scottish Elections 2011: Our Turn to Find an Education Vision Ewan McIntosh 2011
treeseed commented on the word tumbleweed
When I was a child growing up in southern California, the Santa Ana winds that came in late fall and winter were so strong that they would uproot the tumbleweeds and propel them with such force that even though they are extremely light weight, in and of themselves, they would actually knock me down if I couldn't get out of the way fast enough.
February 5, 2008