bitter dock
- noun
- /ˈbɪtər dɑk/
- UK
- You can identify bitter dock by its broad, wavy-edged leaves and tall seed stalks.
Examples
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The field was overgrown with bitter dock, making it difficult to plant new crops.
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Gardeners often remove bitter dock because its roots can be tough and invasive.
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The bitter dock grows abundantly in many gardens.
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Have you ever tried cooking with bitter dock leaves?
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Gardeners often remove bitter dock because its roots can be tough and invasive.
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You can identify bitter dock by its broad, wavy-edged leaves and tall seed stalks.
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The field was overgrown with bitter dock, making it difficult to plant new crops.
Synonyms
1
8.6
A coarse wild plant with long roots whose young leaves can be eaten
1
9.8
A group of leafy plants like docks or sorrels that often grow wild
1
8.1
A plant that lives for many years with broad rounded leaves, a bitter root, often growing as a weed
1
8.5
A common weed with large rounded leaves that comes from Europe
A common weed with large blunt leaves and a bitter root
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning—a dock plant that is bitter—is directly and compositionally derived from 'bitter' (having an acrid taste) modifying 'dock' (the Rumex plant), so a learner who knows both words can infer it denotes a bitter-tasting dock plant. This is a regular adjectival+noun combination following normal English composition (even though 'dock' has other senses like a harbor), making the phrase immediately understandable to B1 learners.
Etymology
Bitter dock is named from the plant's strong taste and the simple word dock for this kind of weed; the leaves and root are very bitter, so people called it a 'bitter' dock. That's why the name points to a bitter-tasting plant.