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Glite Dictionary
🌿 A tall plant 🌱 A bushy subshrub
goat's rue

goat's rue

9.9
A North American bush with soft hairy leaves and pale flowers sometimes used to kill insects
  • noun
  • /ɡoʊts ru/
  • Specialized
translation icon : ruda de cabra
  • Farmers once used goat's rue as a natural insecticide due to its rotenone content.

Examples

  • He identified the unusual plant as goat's rue by its soft, downy leaves.

  • The forest floor was dotted with patches of goat's rue in full bloom.

  • The goat's rue plant thrives in well-drained soil.

  • Have you ever seen a goat's rue flower?

  • Farmers once used goat's rue as a natural insecticide due to its rotenone content.

  • The forest floor was dotted with patches of goat's rue in full bloom.

  • He identified the unusual plant as goat's rue by its soft, downy leaves.

Synonyms

wild sweet pea
vsgoat's rue
  • US
8.2

A low bush with soft leaves and small yellow-pink flowers that grows in eastern North America

is a different common label with identical botanical sense
Tephrosia virginiana
vsgoat's rue
  • Specialized
9.9

A small bush from eastern North America with soft leaves and yellow-pink flowers used to make insect poison

is a common everyday label rather than a formal botanical name

Surface Forms

goat's rue singular
goat's rues plural

Morphology

goat's + rue

The phrase is a simple possessive noun phrase: 'rue' is a plant and 'goat's' marks a type or association, so a learner who knows both words can infer it denotes a kind of rue or plant related to goats. This follows ordinary English naming patterns for plants (e.g. 'goat's beard') and is therefore directly compositional and predictable.

Etymology

Goat's rue was also used for a different North American plant because people thought it looked like the European herb or because animals ate it. That's why the name goat's rue is used for this other plant too, which farmers once used as a 'natural insecticide'.