bastard feverfew
- noun
- /ˈbæstərd ˈfivərˌfju/
- US
:
margarita bastardilla
- The botanist identified the unusual weed as bastard feverfew, noting its small, daisy-like flowers.
Examples
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In the abandoned lot, bastard feverfew quickly took over, covering the ground with white blossoms.
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Many gardeners consider bastard feverfew an invasive species.
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Farmers often struggle to remove bastard feverfew from their fields due to its rapid spread.
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The bastard feverfew blooms beautifully in the summer.
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Farmers often struggle to remove bastard feverfew from their fields due to its rapid spread.
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In the abandoned lot, bastard feverfew quickly took over, covering the ground with white blossoms.
-
The botanist identified the unusual weed as bastard feverfew, noting its small, daisy-like flowers.
Synonyms
A harmful weed from the Americas with small white flowers that spreads quickly and damages crops
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound is directly compositional: 'bastard' (meaning hybrid/impure or false) modifies 'feverfew' (a herb), so the phrase denotes a particular kind or inferior/variant form of feverfew. This head-modifier pattern is straightforward and cross-linguistically common for plant names, so a learner who knows both constituents can infer the MWE's basic meaning.
Etymology
Bastard feverfew may come from people noticing a plant that looks like the true feverfew but is not the same. Calling it bastard showed it was a wild or foreign version, and because it spreads with small white, daisy-like flowers, the name came to mean this common 'weed'.
