rocket cress
- noun
- UK
:
berro de cohete
- Some gardeners struggle to control rocket cress because it spreads quickly in lawns.
Examples
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The yellow flowers of rocket cress brighten up roadsides and open fields in spring.
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Many gardeners consider rocket cress a nuisance.
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Wild salads often include the leaves of rocket cress for their peppery flavor.
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The rocket cress grows abundantly in the wild.
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Some gardeners struggle to control rocket cress because it spreads quickly in lawns.
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The yellow flowers of rocket cress brighten up roadsides and open fields in spring.
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Many gardeners consider rocket cress a nuisance due to its rapid growth.
Synonyms
A harmful plant with bright yellow flowers that often grows where people do not want it
A common wild plant with small yellow flowers that grows in fields and gardens
A weed with yellow flowers that often grows in fields and along roads
A small European plant with yellow flowers and peppery leaves often used in salads
A plant with yellow flowers that grows on old walls and in empty places
How Weedy
Surface Forms
Morphology
rocket + cress
The compound combines two plant names ('rocket' = arugula-like salad green; 'cress' = a small leafy plant), so a B1 learner who knows both words would reasonably infer it denotes a type of plant. However, the specific taxonomic identity and the sense 'a noxious wild species (Sisymbrium/hedge mustard)' and its negative connotation are not directly predictable from the parts, making the meaning only partially derivable.
Etymology
Rocket cress joins rocket and cress; rocket comes from an old word 'roquette' for a 'peppery' salad leaf and cress means a small edible herb. So the name points to a wild, 'peppery' plant with yellow flowers, which is why we use it today for that common weed.