black horehound
- noun
- UK
:
horehound negro
- Herbalists once used black horehound for digestive ailments despite its unpleasant smell.
Examples
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Clusters of black horehound bloomed along the edge of the old garden wall.
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I used black horehound to make herbal tea.
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The strong odor of black horehound makes it easy to identify in the wild.
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The black horehound plant has a strong, unpleasant smell.
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In the summer, the garden was alive with clusters of black horehound blooming along the stone wall.
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Herbalists traditionally recommended black horehound for its benefits in treating digestive issues.
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The distinctive and strong odor of black horehound helps foragers identify it easily in the wild.
Synonyms
A European herb with wrinkled leaves and dark purple flowers that smells unpleasant and is called black horehound
A European herb with wrinkled leaves that smells very bad
A small herb with wrinkled leaves, dark purple flowers and a strong unpleasant smell
A plant with wrinkled leaves and dark purple flowers that has a strong unpleasant smell
Surface Forms
Morphology
This is a straightforward color + noun compound: 'black' simply modifies 'horehound', indicating a dark/darker variety of the horehound herb. The meaning is directly compositional and follows common cross‑linguistic naming patterns (color + item), so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would be able to infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Black horehound gets its name from how the plant looks and smells: black for its dark flowers and horehound for an old name meaning 'bitter, smelly herb'. That's why the name points to this dark, strong-smelling plant that people used in old medicine.
