lamb's-quarters

1 9.2

A wild green plant with leaves you can eat like spinach

noun
/læmz ˈkwɔrtərz/

: purslane

I found some fresh lamb's-quarters in the garden.

Examples

Have you ever tried lamb's-quarters in a salad?
Wild greens such as dandelion and lamb's quarters are also excellent for salads.
In early summer, lamb's-quarters leaves can be steamed and served like spinach.
Many gardeners consider lamb's-quarters to be a weed, but it is actually edible and nutritious.
She harvested some lamb's-quarters from the garden to add to her soup.
Many upscale supermarkets and restaurants now offer wild greens like fiddleheads, watercress, and lamb's quarters on their menus.
Aside from dandelion leaves, lamb's quarters is a highly nutritious plant often used in cooking.

Synonyms

wild spinach

vslamb's-quarters

1 3.9

Green leaves that grow wild and people collect to eat

is the specific common name for that single plant not the general category

lamb's-quarter

vslamb's-quarters

1 9.9

A wild leafy plant with edible leaves often used like spinach

is the plural unhyphenated common form used more often

Chenopodium album

vslamb's-quarters

Specialized

1 8.3

A common wild plant with soft green leaves you can cook and eat like spinach, also called lamb's quarters

is the common name used instead of the scientific term

Surface Forms

lamb's-quarters singular

lamb's-quarters plural

Morphology

lamb's-quarters = lamb + quarter (opaque) = lamb + quarter

The compound is a lexicalized traditional plant name whose meaning ('a potherb') cannot be derived from 'lamb' + 'quarter' by a typical learner.

Etymology

The word lamb's-quarters comes from lamb and quarters, with 'quarters' meaning 'place'. A helpful way to remember it is that the plant often grew where lambs were kept or was gathered as 'food', so people called this edible weed lamb's-quarters, which is why its leaves are used like spinach.