white thistle
- noun
- Specialized
:
argemona
- The large white flowers of the white thistle brightened the edge of the tropical field.
Examples
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The garden was overrun with white thistle, its prickly leaves making it hard to clear.
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Local farmers often consider white thistle a troublesome weed because of its rapid growth.
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The white thistle blooms beautifully in the summer.
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Have you seen a white thistle before?
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In the tropical garden, the white thistle stands out with its large white flowers and spiky leaves.
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Farmers often struggle to manage the growth of white thistle in their fields due to its invasive nature.
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While walking through the field, I noticed the white thistle growing alongside other wildflowers.
Synonyms
A plant with large yellow or white flowers and sharp stems and seed pods
A prickly plant with large white or yellow flowers that grows in warm parts of America
A prickly plant with large white or yellow flowers
Surface Forms
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 gets its name from the plant's sharp prickles and its large pale blooms: the bright white flowers stand out while the stems and leaves are very prickly. So white shows the flower color and thistle shows the prickly plant, which is why people call this tropical 'prickly weed' a white thistle.
