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Glite Dictionary
🥰 A dear person 🌸 A garden plant
sweet pea

sweet pea

1 3.0
A climbing garden plant with small fragrant flowers in pale colors
  • noun
  • /swit pi/
translation icon : guisante dulce
  • To add a touch of color to her garden, she decided to plant sweet peas near the entrance.
  • sweet pea vines
  • sweet pea plant
  • sweet pea seeds

Every every morning we've got Mum's sweet peas popping off.

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Examples

  • The following evening, as she was gathering sweet peas in the front yard for Aunt May, she suddenly felt his presence.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • I love sweet peas, but anybody else that loves sweet peas knows that they die so quickly.

  • The potman wears a small boutonniere of fuchsias and sweet peas.

    Academic text (1992)

  • I saw the tendrils of a sweet pea plant intertwined with the fern-like shoot of an asparagus plant.

    Academic text (2014)

  • Still, the spring signs are showing. In my greenhouse, I have pots full of sweet peas and edible peas sprouting, and the red onions I planted last month are starting to grow.

    Blog text (32)

  • The delightful fragrance of sweet peas filled the air as they climbed up the trellis.

  • For a beautiful spring display, consider growing sweet peas in your backyard garden.

Synonyms

sweetpea
vssweet pea
2 3.9

A climbing garden plant with small sweet smelling pastel flowers

is the same plant but usually written as two words rather than one
Lathyrus odoratus
vssweet pea
  • Specialized
8.3

A climbing garden plant with a sweet smell and pale colorful flowers called sweet pea

is the common garden name rather than the formal Latin name

How Fragrant

jasmine
51 2.7
lilac
26 1.6
sweet pea
1 3.0
pansy
2 2.6

Surface Forms

sweet pea singular
sweet peas plural

Morphology

sweet + pea

The adjective 'sweet' clearly signals affection, but 'pea' is literally a vegetable, so the affectionate meaning arises from a metaphorical/diminutive naming pattern rather than strict compositional semantics. Many languages use small-food or diminutive terms as pet names, so a B1 learner who knows the words can often infer an endearing sense, but the collocational, cultural usage is somewhat idiomatic and benefits from exposure.

Etymology

Sweet pea is the name of a garden flower known for its very sweet smell and for being part of the pea family, so the words sweet and pea describe its scent and small pea-like pods. That's why the term refers today to the fragrant climbing flower often grown for decoration.