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Glite Dictionary
Sweetgrass

Sweetgrass

1 8.3
A small community and border crossing on the Canada and United States border
  • proper noun
  • US
: Sweetgrass
  • Cyanide heap-leach gold mining in Montana threatens the sacred Sweetgrass Hills and is polluting water on the Fort Belknap Reservation.
  • Sweetgrass Basket

Examples

  • "Well, you're looking much better!" Maggie twisted the top of the nail polish bottle back in place and offered me the Sweetgrass basket filled with raw vegetables.

    Fiction book (2000)

  • Good evening and welcome to Tales of Sweetgrass and Trees.

  • Sweetgrass Basket. Marlene Carvell. Dutton. 0-525-47547-8.

    Academic text (2006)

  • You will find many beautiful shops along the streets of Sweetgrass during the summer festival.

  • The town of Sweetgrass has a rich history celebrated in its annual cultural events.

  • Last summer, we visited Sweetgrass and enjoyed the scenic views from the nearby hills.

Surface Forms

Sweetgrass main

Morphology

Sweetgrass = sweet + grass (semi-transparent) = sweet + grass

The components 'sweet' + 'grass' are semantically clear, but as a place name the compound functions as an arbitrary toponym rather than a predictable noun phrase.

Etymology

Sweetgrass comes from the name of a plant, sweetgrass, which is just sweet + grass because it has a sweet smell and is often used by Native people in ceremonies. So a town or border crossing called Sweetgrass was likely named after that plant — imagine the sweet smell by the road to help you remember the name.