Definitions

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

  • noun Any of various grasses of the genus Bouteloua of western North America and South America, forming dense tufts or mats and often used as pasturage.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A name for various grasses: always used with a qualifying word.
  • noun The bristly mesquit, Bouteloua hirsuta, and the woolly-foot, B. eriopoda.
  • noun One of the blow-out grasses, Muhlenbergia pungens. See blow-out. Also called grama china.
  • noun Same as curly mesquit.

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

  • noun a type of grass, Bouteloua oligostachya

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

  • noun pasture grass of plains of South America and western North America

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[American Spanish, from Spanish, Bermuda grass, quitch grass, from Latin grāmen, grāmin-, grass.]

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Examples

  • The word grama, which means "village" in later Sanskrit, in the RgVeda meant basically a "group" of people.

    The Civic Platform - A Political Journal of Ideas and Analysis 2008

  • We rested above an hour in the cool shade, while our horses refreshed themselves on the "grama" that grew luxuriantly around.

    The Scalp Hunters Mayne Reid 1850

  • There was plenty of the "grama" grass growing along the banks of the rivulet, and that with the water was all they cared for to make them contented and happy.

    The Boy Hunters Mayne Reid 1850

  • IMAGE: father's day green gift guide, green father's day, green gift guide, veja bota, veja grama

    FATHER’S DAY GREEN GIFT GUIDE Veja Eco Sneakers – Inhabitat 2009

  • If you would like to eat grama grass, Big bluestem, western wheat grass, pature thistle, cedar trees, side oats grama grass, buffalo grass, wild mustard, goldenrod, and too many other native plant species to type out I will make you up a salad right now.

    Anti-Deer-Hunting Billboard Goes Up in Kansas City 2009

  • As the drought shriveled the acres of sideoats grama and bluestem grass on his property, Epperson, 57, was forced to sell off all but 90 of his 400 cows and 800 of his 3,000 goats.

    Drought puts cattle ranchers at a crossroads 2011

  • If you would like to eat grama grass, Big bluestem, western wheat grass, pature thistle, cedar trees, side oats grama grass, buffalo grass, wild mustard, goldenrod, and too many other native plant species to type out I will make you up a salad right now.

    Anti-Deer-Hunting Billboard Goes Up in Kansas City 2009

  • As the drought shriveled the acres of sideoats grama and bluestem grass on his property, Epperson, 57, was forced to sell off all but 90 of his 400 cows and 800 of his 3,000 goats.

    Drought puts cattle ranchers at a crossroads 2011

  • From a distance, pockets of orangish-red and brown soil were laced with drought-resistant tallgrass; blue grama, fescue, prairie dropseed, and the slender green stems of quack grass.

    No Mercy Lori Armstrong 2010

  • But a hundred miles west there would have been no timber at all, and by the time the traveler reached modern-day Lubbock and Amarillo, he would have seen nothing but a dead flat and infinitely receding expanse of grama and buffalo grasses through which only a few gypsum-laced rivers ran and on which few landmarks if any would have been distinguishable.

    EMPIRE OF THE SUMMER MOON S. C. Gwynne 2010

Comments

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  • Usage on secateurs. "Blue grama" sounds awfully pretty.

    November 11, 2008