Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A low spreading plant with yellow flowers and clover-like leaves,
Oxalis stricta .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun any of certain coarse weedy plants with long taproots, sometimes used as table greens or in folk medicine
Etymologies
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Examples
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qroqqa commented on the word sour grass
She knew where sour grass grew, which you chew for dypepsy, and mint, excellent for the naushy, and the slippery elm, whose fragrant inner bark was the favourite demulcent of a hundred years ago – the tink to use for raw throat and other sore tishas.
—James Thurber, 1952, 'Daguerreotype of a Lady', in The Thurber Album (Penguin ed., so BrE conventions)
Probably one or other variety of sorrel (Rumex or Oxalis), though OED also gives it to mean tropical grass of genus Paspalum, and South African coarse grass characteristic of sour veld.
July 10, 2008
missanthropist commented on the word sour grass
Curiously, I have heard not a word of this before these last few days, now everyone cannot wait to tell me that the bright little yellow flowers upon long tubular stems here are 'sour grass', and the chewing them to shreds is a common spring passtime for children.
Oh. I get it now.
February 4, 2009