yellow nutgrass
- noun
- Children once dug up yellow nutgrass tubers to eat as a snack.
Examples
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Gardeners often struggle to control yellow nutgrass because of its persistent roots.
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The yellow nutgrass is often found in wetlands.
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The farmer discovered yellow nutgrass growing in the corner of his field.
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Farmers sometimes struggle with yellow nutgrass in their fields.
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As a child, I enjoyed gathering yellow nutgrass tubers from the garden to snack on.
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Many gardeners use herbicides to prevent yellow nutgrass from taking over their flower beds.
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The local market sells fresh yellow nutgrass tubers, which are popular for their unique flavor.
Synonyms
1
9.9
A plant like grass with small edible nutlike parts under the ground
1
7.8
A grasslike plant with small edible parts under the ground that often grows as a weed
1
9.9
A grass-like plant that makes small sweet edible tubers called tiger nuts
1
8.9
A grass-like plant with small edible nutlike roots often seen as a weed
1
8.5
A grass-like plant with small round edible underground tubers that often grows as a weed
A small edible root like a tiny nut that people eat or use in food
A small plant with edible parts like nuts that grow under the ground
How Edible
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and transparently derived from 'yellow' (a color) modifying 'nutgrass' (a plant with edible nutlike tubers); a B1 learner who knows both constituents will understand it denotes a nutgrass that is yellow. Color + noun compounding is a regular, cross-linguistic compositional pattern, so no idiomatic or unpredictable shift is involved.
Etymology
Yellow nutgrass is named for how it looks: a grass-like plant with small, yellow, nutlike tubers that people once dug up and ate as a 'snack'. That's why the name joins yellow, nut, and grass, and today it refers to that particular plant.