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Glite Dictionary
sour grass

sour grass

8.1
A small plant like clover with a sour taste that people eat as a green
  • noun
translation icon : acederas
  • She added some sour grass to the salad for a tangy flavor.

Examples

  • In spring, people often forage for sour grass to use in their dishes.

  • The herbal tea included sour grass, believed to aid digestion.

  • There's also sour grass, camomile and mistletoe for the medicine chest.

    Revolution (1985)

Synonyms

sorrel
vssour grass
2 7.0

A plant with sour green leaves used in salads or cooking

refers specifically to coarse weedy Oxalis plants sometimes used as table greens
sour dock
vssour grass
8.6

A plant with large sour leaves used in salads and spring greens

refers to coarse weedy plants rather than a single cultivated species

Surface Forms

sour grass singular
sour grasses plural

Morphology

sour + grass

The compound 'sour grass' is a literal adjective+noun combination: 'sour' (tart) modifying 'grass' (plants), yielding plants with an acidic/tart taste (e.g., Oxalis/sorrel). This straightforward compositional pattern is cross-linguistically common and should be understandable to a B1 learner who knows both constituent words.

Etymology

Sour grass comes from the sharp, lemon-like taste of some wild plants, with sour showing the tart flavor and grass showing that it is a small green plant. People would chew or cook the leaves as food or 'home medicine', so the name now means 'a plant with a sour taste' used for food or simple remedies.