weeds

English

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /wiːdz/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːdz

Etymology 1

Inflected form of weed.

Noun

weeds

1. plural of weed

Verb

weeds

1. third-person singular simple present indicative of weed

Etymology 2

From Old English wǣd, wǣde, from Proto-Germanic *wēdiz (“piece of cloth, garment”).

Noun

weeds pl (plural only)

1. (obsolete) Clothes.
   • 1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iii]:

     Come, let us hence, and put on other weeds;

   • 1749, Henry Fielding, chapter I, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book III:

     Nor can the judicious reader be at a greater loss on account of Mrs Bridget Blifil, who, he may be assured, conducted herself through the whole season in which grief is to make its appearance on the outside of the body, with the strictest regard to all the rules of custom and decency, suiting the alterations of her countenance to the several alterations of her habit: for as this changed from weeds to black, from black to grey, from grey to white, so did her countenance change from dismal to sorrowful, from sorrowful to sad, and from sad to serious, till the day came in which she was allowed to return to her former serenity.

   • 1886, Aeschylus, Choephori, translated by Anna Swanwick, lines 10–12

     What sight is this? What company of women
     Is wending hitherward, in sable weeds
     Conspicuous?

Usage notes

Fossil word, found in phrase widow's weeds.

Derived terms

• widow's weeds

Anagrams

• Swede, sewed, swede