Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A woody plant (Spiraea tomentosa) in the rose family, native to eastern North America, having leaves with rusty down on the undersides and spikelike clusters of small rose-purple flowers.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A low shrub, Spiræa tomentosa, with woolly leaves and pods, and dense terminal panicles of rose-colored or white flowers. Also called
steeplebush . - noun The hop-hornbeam, Ostrya Virginiana.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Bot.) A very astringent shrub (
Spiræa tomentosa ), common in pastures. ThePotentilla fruticosa is also called by this name.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A plant, the
steeplebush .
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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By the time I got back up the hill he had three saplings—the two hardhack runners plus a straight young ash, destined to be our tongue—felled and limbed.
The Dirty Life Kristin Kimball 2010
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In the machine shop, we bound the hardhack runners to wooden braces and decked them over with pine boards to make a sturdy platform, six feet by eight.
The Dirty Life Kristin Kimball 2010
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We were looking for hardhack, the local name for hop hornbeam, a heavy, dense hardwood that wears extremely well and is, according to Mr. Owens, the very best material from which to make a jumper.
The Dirty Life Kristin Kimball 2010
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Once they drew their canoe up to the bank of Sunasquam Water, a stream walled in by the dense green of the hardhack.
Babbit 2004
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For dessert they had chestnuts, beech-nuts, and butternuts, and for drink they used the checkerberry and hardhack, but mostly they used mountain tea and swamp chocolate-root; these two last-named articles nearly resembled those brought from foreign countries.
The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 Various
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It was something foreign, grotesque, and picturesque in a life of the most matter-of-fact sameness; it was even as if one should see clusters of palm-trees scattered here and there among Yankee wooden meeting-houses, or open one's eyes on clumps of yellow-striped aloes growing among hardhack and huckleberry bushes in the pastures.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 03, No. 16, February, 1859 Various
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Once they drew their canoe up to the bank of Sunasquam Water, a stream walled in by the dense green of the hardhack.
Babbitt 1922
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Once they drew their canoe up to the bank of Sunasquam Water, a stream walled in by the dense green of the hardhack.
Chapter 11 1922
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Once they drew their canoe up to the bank of Sunasquam Water, a stream walled in by the dense green of the hardhack.
Babbitt Sinclair Lewis 1918
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Some of the time he could hardly see the narrow sidewalk path between the dusty meadowsweet and hardhack bushes, since those floating black threads wove together into a veritable veil before him.
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