Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A common European under-shrub, Ononis arvensis, generally low, spreading, and much branched (often thorny), bearing pink papilionaceous flowers, and having tough matted roots which hinder the plow or harrow. The root is diuretic. Also wild licorice, cammock, whin, etc.
- noun A small geometrid moth, Aplasta ononaria: popularly so called in England because the caterpillar feeds in April and September on Ononis arvensis, var. spinosa. The moth flies in May, July, and August.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Bot.) A European leguminous plant (
Ononis arvensis ) with long, tough roots.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun European woody plant having pink flowers and unifoliate leaves and long tough roots; spreads by underground runners
- noun Eurasian plant having loose racemes of pink or purple flowers and spiny stems and tough roots
- noun European woody plant having pink flowers and unifoliate leaves and long tough roots; spreads by underground runners
- noun Eurasian plant having loose racemes of pink or purple flowers and spiny stems and tough roots
Etymologies
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Examples
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From this setting issue spirals of white-belled convolvulus, twigs of pink rest-harrow mingled with
Balzac 2003
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The cliff was a tangle of flowers above and below, with poppies at the lip being blown out like red flame, and scabious leaning inquisitively to look down, and pink and white rest-harrow everywhere, very pretty.
The Trespasser 2003
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From this setting issue spirals of white-belled convolvulus, twigs of pink rest-harrow mingled with a few ferns, and a few young oak-shoots having magnificently coloured leaves; all advance bowing themselves, humble as weeping willows, timid and suppliant as prayers.
Balzac Frederick Lawton
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He lay staring at the grass, covered with tiny blossoms of self-heal and rest-harrow: behind and a hundred feet below him the sea swirled, its deep peacock hue patterned with milky wreaths of foam; half around him reared a semi-circle of pale cliff.
Secret Bread F. Tennyson Jesse
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From this setting issue spirals of white-belled convolvulus, twigs of pink rest-harrow mingled with a few ferns, and a few young oak-shoots having magnificently coloured leaves; all advance bowing themselves, humble as weeping willows, timid and suppliant as prayers.
Balzac Lawton, Frederick 1910
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The cliff was a tangle of flowers above and below, with poppies at the lip being blown out like red flame, and scabious leaning inquisitively to look down, and pink and white rest-harrow everywhere, very pretty.
The Trespasser 1907
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I saw rest-harrow which has a root like whipcord, and the flat thistle which thrives in dust.
In a Green Shade A Country Commentary Maurice Hewlett 1892
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There is a common little English meadow weed, the rest-harrow, which in rich and uncropped fields produces no defensive armour of any sort; but on the much-browsed-over suburban commons and in similar exposed spots, where only gorse and blackthorn stand a chance for their lives against the cows and donkeys, it has developed a protected variety in which some of the branches grow abortive, and end abruptly in stout spines like a hawthorn's.
Science in Arcady Grant Allen 1873
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Now follows the gorse, and the pink rest-harrow, and the sweet lady's-bedstraw, set as it were in the midst of a little thorn-bush.
The Life of the Fields Richard Jefferies 1867
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Birds'-foot lotus covered the sward of one part of the Cuckoo-fields, on the higher ground near the woods, where the soil was dry; and by the hedge there were some bushy plants of the rest-harrow, whose prickly branches repel cattle and whose appearance reproaches the farmer for neglect.
Round About a Great Estate Richard Jefferies 1867
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