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Glite Dictionary
🌵 A spiny shrub 🌿 A prickly weed
white thistle

white thistle

9.9
A spiny shrub with silvery leaves that grows on dry, often salty plains
  • noun
  • Specialized
translation icon : cardo blanco
  • The silvery leaves of the white thistle make it easy to spot among other desert plants.

Examples

  • The arid landscape was dotted with white thistle thriving in the alkaline soil.

  • Botanists studied the unique characteristics of the white thistle during their field trip in New Mexico.

  • Look at that beautiful white thistle over there!

  • The white thistle grows abundantly in the desert.

  • The arid landscape was dotted with white thistle thriving in the alkaline soil.

  • Botanists studied the unique characteristics of the white thistle during their field trip in New Mexico.

  • The silvery leaves of the white thistle make it easy to spot among other desert plants.

Synonyms

quail brush
vswhite thistle
  • US
9.9

A spiny shrub with silvery leaves that grows on dry alkaline plains

is the other common name form using a different final word for the plant
quail bush
vswhite thistle
  • US
9.9

A spiny shrub with silvery leaves that grows on dry, salty plains

is the other common name form using a different ending word for the plant
Atriplex lentiformis
vswhite thistle
  • Specialized
9.9

A thorny bush with silver leaves that grows in dry salty ground

is the everyday English name used by general speakers

Surface Forms

white thistle singular
white thistles plural

Morphology

white + thistle

This is a straightforward adjective + noun composition: 'white' denotes color and 'thistle' denotes a prickly plant, so the phrase refers to a thistle that is white in color (or has white flowers). Such color + noun combinations are highly compositional and cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents would readily infer the meaning.

Etymology

The noun white thistle may come from how the plant looks: its silvery leaves and pale flowers make whole bushes look white across the dry plains. So the name joins white and thistle, which helps you remember this 'spiny shrub'.