sweet cicely
- noun
- UK
:
cicely dulce
- Gardeners appreciate sweet cicely for its attractive white flowers and its ability to attract beneficial insects.
Examples
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Sweet cicely is often used to enhance the flavor of fruit salads with its sweet, aniseed taste.
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In traditional cooking, sweet cicely adds a delightful sweetness to stews and herbal teas.
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Gardeners value sweet cicely for its pleasant aniseed scent and delicate foliage.
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In the spring, sweet cicely produces clusters of small white flowers that attract pollinators.
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The leaves of sweet cicely are often used to sweeten fruit dishes naturally.
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The garden is filled with sweet cicely this spring.
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Have you ever tasted sweet cicely in a salad?
Synonyms
A herb from Europe with sweet-smelling leaves like ferns and white flowers
A plant with sweet-smelling leaves used in cooking and herbal medicine
A herb with sweet-smelling leaves used to flavor food
How Sweet
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is a straightforward adjective + noun composition: a B1 learner who knows 'sweet' and 'cicely' will infer this refers to a sweet- or pleasantly flavored/ aromatic variety or product of the cicely plant. Such adjective+noun plant names are cross-linguistically common and the referential meaning (a sweet cicely plant or its aromatic product) is directly derivable from the constituents.
Etymology
Sweet cicely gets its name from its sweet aniseed scent and delicate, fern-like leaves called cicely that gardeners know well. People used the leaves to 'sweeten' fruit and food, so the name helps us remember it as a sweet-smelling garden and kitchen herb.