Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of several annual weeds of the genus Xanthium in the composite family, having small seedlike fruits enclosed within a prickly bur that clings readily to clothing or animal fur.
  • noun A bur of this plant.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The clot-bur, Xanthium Strumarium, a weedy composite plant with close spiny involucres.
  • noun The agrimony, Agrimonia Eupatoria.
  • noun The burdock, Arctium Lappa.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Bot.) A coarse, composite weed, having a rough or prickly fruit; one of several species of the genus Xanthium; -- called also clotbur.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun botany Any of the coarse composite weeds of the genus Xanthium, with a prickly fruit.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun any coarse weed of the genus Xanthium having spiny burrs
  • noun burdock having heart-shaped leaves found in open woodland, hedgerows and rough grassland of Europe (except extreme N) and Asia Minor; sometimes cultivated for medicinal and culinary use
  • noun any coarse weed of the genus Xanthium having spiny burrs

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

cockle +‎ bur

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Examples

  • The light infantry will be hidden in the switchgrass, and, hopefully, avoiding the cocklebur.

    Fatal Circle Linda Robertson 2010

  • Among species characteristic of this habitat are Russian thistle, cocklebur, witchgrass, inland Sea Rocket and velvetleaf.

    Old Woman Creek National Estuarine Research Reserve, Ohio 2007

  • Which brought me to the present: host to a flea circus, stuck to a cocklebur plant, with an unknown intruder watching me from the woods who was packing a butt load of cat magic.

    Changeling Galenorn, Yasmine 2007

  • Inculcating and deluding the masses with a multi-billion dollar barrage of agitprop and sophistry potent enough to penetrate the minds of the most adroit thinkers, the moneyed interests behind corporatism and exploitative Capitalism have created a false dichotomy that clings to our collective psyche like a cocklebur deeply embedded in a wool sock.

    Milton Lost: Can We Regain Paradise? 2006

  • For Bush, who is known to spend early-morning hours hacking at unwanted mesquite, cocklebur weeds, hanging limbs and underbrush only to go back for more after lunch, it borders on obsession.

    Hullabaloo 2005

  • For Bush, who is known to spend early-morning hours hacking at unwanted mesquite, cocklebur weeds, hanging limbs and underbrush only to go back for more after lunch, it borders on obsession.

    Hullabaloo 2005

  • For Bush, who is known to spend early-morning hours hacking at unwanted mesquite, cocklebur weeds, hanging limbs and underbrush only to go back for more after lunch, it borders on obsession.

    Hullabaloo 2005

  • It rankled in his mind like a cocklebur, raising question after question.

    A Man Of Honour Leonard, Tina 2001

  • And so the man walks around and around again and finally sees the cocklebur.

    Coyote Medicine M.D. Lewis Mebl-Madrona 1997

  • And so the man walks around and around again and finally sees the cocklebur.

    Coyote Medicine M.D. Lewis Mebl-Madrona 1997

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