lamb's lettuce

5.8

A small leafy green with a mild nutty taste often eaten in salads

noun
/læmz ˈlɛtɪs/

: lechuga de cordero

I love adding lamb's lettuce to my salads.
lamb's lettuce salad
lamb's lettuce and corn

Examples

For lunch, I prepared a fresh salad featuring lamb's lettuce as the main ingredient.
You can find lamb's lettuce at the farmer's market.
Lamb's lettuce grows well in cool weather and is easy to harvest for home gardens.
At the farmers' market, you can often find organic lamb's lettuce alongside other leafy greens.
She sprinkled lamb's lettuce on top of the salad for a fresh, nutty flavor.
The chef recommended adding lamb's lettuce to the salad for its delicate flavor.
In the spring, many grocery stores have lamb's lettuce in stock, perfect for a light salad.

Synonyms

corn salad

vslamb's lettuce

1 4.2

A small annual plant with tender edible leaves used in salads

is the basic name focusing on the plant itself rather than usage

mache

vslamb's lettuce

1 7.8

A small green leaf used in salads with a mild taste

is the neutral botanical or general term used more widely

Valerianella locusta

vslamb's lettuce

Specialized

8.8

A small leafy plant with mild leaves eaten raw in salads

is the everyday common name rather than the scientific label

common corn salad

vslamb's lettuce

6.5

A small leafy plant people use in salads that can grow wild as a weed

is the neutral food name without extra cultivation or weed nuance

Surface Forms

lamb's lettuce singular

lamb's lettuces plural

Morphology

lamb's + lettuce

The constituent 'lettuce' clearly signals that this is a salad green, so a learner who knows the words will likely infer it denotes a kind of leafy vegetable. However, the possessive 'lamb's' is not literally compositional (it does not mean lettuce belonging to a lamb) and the specific plant name/origin is arbitrary, so the exact referent and etymology are not predictable without prior exposure.

Etymology

Lamb's lettuce may come from people seeing lambs eating the soft leaves, so the words lamb's and lettuce point to a green that lambs liked. That's why the name now means the small 'salad green' also called 'corn salad'.