Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
sand sage

sand sage

8.8
A small bush with silver leaves that grows on dry grasslands
  • noun
  • US
translation icon : salvia de arena
  • Ranchers often struggle to control the spread of sand sage on their grazing lands.

Examples

  • The delicate silver leaves of sand sage shimmered in the early morning light.

  • Large areas of the prairie were covered in sand sage and other native grasses.

  • The sand sage grows abundantly in the desert.

  • Many ranchers consider sand sage a nuisance.

  • Ranchers often struggle to control the spread of sand sage on their grazing lands.

  • Large areas of the prairie were covered in sand sage and other native grasses.

  • Many ranchers consider sand sage a nuisance due to its invasive growth.

Synonyms

silvery wormwood
vssand sage
  • US
9.9

A bush with silver leaves that grows in dry areas and is often a weed

uses an alternative traditional or regional common name instead
Artemisia filifolia
vssand sage
  • Specialized
9.9

A silver-grey shrub that grows on plains in the United States and Mexico and often becomes a weed in pastures

is the everyday descriptive or common name rather than the scientific label

Surface Forms

sand sage singular
sand sages plural

Morphology

sand + sage

This is a straightforward noun–noun compound where 'sand' modifies 'sage' to indicate a kind of sage associated with sandy habitats; a B1 learner who knows 'sand' and 'sage' can infer it refers to a plant/shrub that grows in sand. The compositional pattern is a regular, cross-linguistically common compounding in English, so the overall meaning is immediately derivable from the parts.

Etymology

Sand sage comes from a simple picture: the plant grows in sand and its leaves look like common sage. People called the silver-haired 'shrub' sand sage, so today the name means that familiar wild 'weed' found on grazing land.