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pie plant

pie plant

6.1
A plant with thick stems you can eat, often used in pies
  • noun
  • /paɪ plænt/
  • Archaic
translation icon : ruibarbo
  • They used fresh pie plant to bake a tart and tangy dessert.

Examples

  • She picked some fresh pie plant from the garden.

  • The garden had a large patch of pie plant behind the shed.

  • Her grandmother always made the best pie plant jam in the spring.

  • Are you going to use pie plants in your dessert?

  • Her grandmother always made the best pie plant jam in the spring.

  • They used fresh pie plant to bake a tart and tangy dessert.

  • The garden had a large patch of pie plant behind the shed.

Synonyms

rhubarb
vspie plant
14 3.5

Thick sour stalks usually cooked and sweetened for pies

is a variant term used instead of this common name
pieplant
vspie plant
  • Archaic
9.9

A plant with long sour stalks usually cooked with sugar and used in pies

is the less common alternative term rather than the main name
Rheum rhabarbarum
vspie plant
  • Specialized
7.8

A plant with thick edible stalks often used in cooking like pies

is the everyday alternative rather than the formal botanical name
garden rhubarb
vspie plant
2.5

A plant with thick red or green stalks that taste tart and are cooked in pies

is another term that does not stress garden cultivation
rhubarb plant
vspie plant
3.2

A garden plant that grows back every year with thick stalks you cook and eat but poisonous leaves

is a term focusing on the edible stalks, not leaf toxicity
Rheum rhaponticum
vspie plant
  • Specialized
9.6

A plant with tart edible stems that people cook and eat in pies

is the broad, nontechnical alternative covering many varieties
Rheum cultorum
vspie plant
  • Specialized
8.6

A garden plant like rhubarb grown for its sour edible stems used in pies or jam

is the general common term rather than this hybrid name
red-veined pie plant
vspie plant
  • Indian
9.9

A herb from the Himalayas with red veins in its leaves used in pies

is the familiar English cooking term for the common plant

Surface Forms

pie plant singular
pie plants plural

Morphology

pie + plant

The noun combines 'pie' and 'plant' in a directly compositional way to indicate a plant used for pies (i.e., an edible plant like rhubarb). A B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily infer that it refers to a plant associated with making pies, so the meaning is transparently derived from its parts.

Etymology

Pie plant is an old garden name for 'rhubarb'. People called it a pie plant because the long, tart stems were often cooked into pies and jams, so the name came to mean 'rhubarb'.