cabbage bark
- noun
- NSFW
:
corteza de repollo
- The cabbage bark is known for its unusually tough timber and medicinal properties.
Examples
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Because of its strong scent, cabbage bark trees are easy to identify in the forest.
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Many herbalists use cabbage bark for medicinal purposes.
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Traditional healers sometimes use the bark of the cabbage bark to treat intestinal parasites.
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The cabbage bark tree is known for its strong wood.
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The cabbage bark tree is often valued for its strong, durable wood and can be found in tropical regions.
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He harvested the cabbage bark to use in traditional medicine for its purgative effects.
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When cut, the cabbage bark emits a strong odor that helps identify it among other trees.
Synonyms
A tropical tree with poisonous, smelly bark and hard wood used in traditional medicine
A tropical tree with smelly, poisonous bark and strong wood whose bark and seeds people use as medicine
A tropical tree with strong wood and toxic, smelly bark used to make the bowels move and kill worms
Surface Forms
Morphology
cabbage + bark
The element 'bark' keeps its ordinary meaning (tree outer covering), but the compound names a specific tree species and uses 'cabbage' as a lexical modifier whose relation to the plant is not predictable from the vegetable 'cabbage'. A B1 learner who knows both words might guess it is some kind of tree bark related to 'cabbage' but would not reliably infer the specific species properties, toxic/purgative uses, or the lexicalized botanical sense, so the relation is only partially transparent.
Etymology
Cabbage bark probably got its name because the tree's bark smells like cabbage and comes off in thick, cabbage-like layers, a clear image people remembered. Because of that strong smell and very tough bark, people used the wood for building and the bark in old medicines, so the name now points to the tree known for its smelly, useful bark.
