Definitions

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

  • noun An eastern North American bog plant (Lachnanthes caroliana) having red roots and woolly yellow flowers.
  • noun A coarse cosmopolitan weed (Amaranthus retroflexus) having hairy leaves and stout terminal panicles with dense lateral spikes of green flowers.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The bloodroot, Sanguinaria Canadensis.
  • noun The field-gromwell, Lithospermum arvense.
  • noun An American shrub, Ceanothus Americanus, the New Jersey tea.
  • noun A herbaceous plant, Lachnanthes tinctoria, of the Hæmodoraceæ, or bloodwort family.
  • noun The alkanet, Alkanna tinctoria.
  • noun One of the pigweeds, Amarantus retroflexus.

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

  • noun (Bot.) A name of several plants having red roots, as the New Jersey tea (see under tea), the gromwell, the bloodroot, and the Lachnanthes tinctoria, an endogenous plant found in sandy swamps from Rhode Island to Florida.

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

  • noun Any of several plants with red roots, such as the New Jersey tea, the gromwell, the bloodroot, and Lachnanthes tinctoria.

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

  • noun perennial woodland native of North America having a red root and red sap and bearing a solitary lobed leaf and white flower in early spring and having acrid emetic properties; rootstock used as a stimulant and expectorant

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

red +‎ root

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Examples

  • The weeds commonly called redroot or iron-weed are very good for this.

    Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium Jessie Hubbell Bancroft

  • A former teacher and survivor of the Khmer Rouge, a regime that slaughtered more 20 percent of the Cambodian population in the 1970s, Kim sells sweet potatoes, redroot pigweed and tomatoes to Boston-based Tropical Foods and stores in Maine.

    New Entry Sustainable Farming Project Turns Refugees Into Farmers 2010

  • THE NEXT DAY, I'm scrambling over chest-high brambles of redroot and busted pieces of cattle trough when a rooster pops up 5 feet ahead, catches a 35-mph wind, and streaks away, cackling like a Halloween witch.

    The Texas Panhandle: Home to Some of America's Best Pheasant Hunting 2008

  • One March, during a deep snow, a large flock of buntings stayed about my vineyards for several days, feeding upon the seeds of redroot and other weeds that stood above the snow.

    The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers John Burroughs 1879

  • It does indeed look like a kind of forethought in the redroot.

    Winter Sunshine John Burroughs 1879

  • A former teacher and survivor of the Khmer Rouge, a regime that slaughtered more 20 percent of the Cambodian population in the 1970s, Kim sells sweet potatoes, redroot pigweed and tomatoes to Boston-based Tropical Foods and stores in

    The Seattle Times 2010

  • A former teacher and survivor of the Khmer Rouge, a regime that slaughtered more 20 percent of the Cambodian population in the 1970s, Kim sells sweet potatoes, redroot pigweed and tomatoes to Boston-based Tropical Foods and stores in

    phillyBurbs.com: Home RSS feed 2010

  • A former teacher and survivor of the Khmer Rouge, a regime that slaughtered more 20 percent of the Cambodian population in the 1970s, Kim sells sweet potatoes, redroot pigweed and tomatoes to Boston-based Tropical Foods and stores in

    WTOP / Business / Biz Stories 2010

  • A former teacher and survivor of the Khmer Rouge, a regime that slaughtered more 20 percent of the Cambodian population in the 1970s, Kim sells sweet potatoes, redroot pigweed and tomatoes to Boston-based Tropical Foods and stores in

    KLTV - Local and National News 2010

  • A former teacher and survivor of the Khmer Rouge, a regime that slaughtered more 20 percent of the Cambodian population in the 1970s, Kim sells sweet potatoes, redroot pigweed and tomatoes to Boston-based Tropical Foods and stores in

    WTVM - 1- WTVM Home 2010

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  • A name of several plants having red roots, as the new Jersey tea (see under Tea), the gromwell, the bloodroot, and the Lachnanthes tinctoria, an endogenous plant found in sandy swamps from Rhode Island to Florida.

    January 19, 2009