herb

noun
/hɜːb/UK/(h)ɝb/CA/hɜː(ɹ)b/

Etymology

From Middle English herbe, erbe, from Old French erbe (French herbe), from Latin herba. Initial h was restored to the spelling in the 15th century on the basis of Latin, but it remained mute until the 19th century and still is for many speakers. Doublet of yerba.

  1. derived from herba
  2. derived from erbe
  3. inherited from herbe

Definitions

  1. Any green, leafy plant, or parts thereof, used to flavour or season food.

  2. A plant whose roots, leaves or seeds, etc. are used in medicine.

    • If any medicinal herbs used by witches were supposedly evil, then how come people from at least the past benefited from the healing properties of such herbs?
  3. Cannabis.

    • The room was thick and sour with the smell of herb.
    • You think he's got any herb?
  4. + 4 more definitions
    1. A plant whose stem is not woody and does not persist beyond each growing season

    2. Grass

      Grass; herbage.

      • flocks grazing the tender herb
    3. (always with pronounced /h/) A lame or uncool person.

      • George (AO) describes the tie between fighting and respect: 'Cause some people could come up to you and say, “Ah, he's a herb, he can't fight. He's nothing.”
    4. A diminutive of the male given name Herbert.

      • Herb and Greta poured through “name” books and the only name they could agree on was “Rosalie.” Greta told Herb that she didn't want her daughter's name to end in a “lie,” and so they named her Rosalee.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at herb. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01herb02medicine03ingested04ingest05intake06contraction07shortening08vegetable

A definitional loop anchored at herb. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

8 hops · closes at herb

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA