spinach plant
- noun
- /ˈspɪnɪtʃ plænt/
- After harvesting, she washed the spinach plants thoroughly before cooking them.
Examples
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These were the spinach plants, obviously, that just fell over and died.
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And then there are three little spinach plants and then two red romaine.
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The gardener decided to plant more spinach plants to ensure a fresh supply of vegetables for the summer.
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Growing healthy spinach plants requires plenty of sunlight and nutrient-rich soil.
Synonyms
A green leafy vegetable eaten raw or cooked
A leafy green plant with dark edible leaves eaten as spinach
A leafy green plant with small prickly seeds that people grow for its tender dark leaves used in cooking
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a plant that is spinach' is directly and compositionally derived from combining 'spinach' (the edible leafy vegetable) with 'plant' (a living photosynthetic organism), so a B1 learner who knows both words can infer the referent. This noun+noun naming pattern for plants is cross-linguistically common and follows ordinary English compounding, making the MWE immediately comprehensible.
Etymology
Spinach plant simply points to the living plant that grows dark, edible leaves called spinach; picture a low green patch full of leaves you pick for a salad. So, spinach plant means 'the plant that produces spinach'.