bastard pimpernel
- noun
- Specialized
:
pimpernel bastardillo
- Gardeners often remove bastard pimpernel because it quickly spreads in dry soil.
Examples
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The bastard pimpernel grows abundantly in dry areas.
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The field was full of bastard pimpernel growing alongside the wildflowers.
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She identified the weed as bastard pimpernel during her botany survey.
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I found a bastard pimpernel in my garden last summer.
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The bastard pimpernel is often found thriving in dry, disturbed soils.
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Due to its rapid spread, many gardeners consider bastard pimpernel a nuisance in arid regions.
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On her walk, she noticed bastard pimpernel growing in the cracks of the pavement.
Synonyms
A small plant like a weed with short dry leaves that looks like a pimpernel
A small weed with short dry leaves that often grows in wet places
Surface Forms
Morphology
bastard + pimpernel
Knowing 'pimpernel' as a plant name and 'bastard' as indicating an impure/false or inferior form, a B1 learner could infer this denotes a kind of (false/inferior) pimpernel — i.e., a plant related to the pimpernel. However, the fine-grained descriptive meaning (weedy habit, short dry chaff-like leaves) is not predictable from the constituents alone, so the relation is only partially transparent.
Etymology
Bastard pimpernel comes from the simple idea that this weed looks like a true pimpernel but is a poorer, unwanted version, so the word bastard was used to mean 'false' or 'not the real one'. So today bastard pimpernel refers to a small, weedy plant that often grows in dry or disturbed soil.
