weeds
1
9.9
Black clothes that a widow wears to show mourning
- noun
- Archaic
:
vestidos de luto
Synonyms
black
vsweeds
11
1.4
Clothes worn to show mourning after someone's death
is reserved for garments worn specifically by a woman after her husband's death
1
9.9
Black clothes a woman wears after her husband dies to show she is mourning
is an older archaic term rarely used in modern language
funeral attire
vsweeds
3.4
Dark, formal clothes people wear to show respect at a funeral
is specific to dark garments worn by a woman mourning her husband's death
Idioms
stuck in the weeds
- Informal
1
8.3
Giving too much attention to small details that you lose sight of the main goal
Compounds
widow's weeds
- Archaic
1
9.9
Black clothes a woman wears after her husband dies to show she is mourning
Surface Forms
Morphology
weeds = weed (opaque) = weed + s
Formally the plural of 'weed', but the sense relies on an archaic meaning 'garment' distinct from the common plant sense, so learners are unlikely to infer the meaning.
Etymology
Weeds comes from an old English word wǣd meaning 'clothes', so being 'in weeds' once meant being dressed in special mourning clothes.