What does "bedstraw" mean?

any plant of herb genus Galium of the madder family with small pointed leaves and hairy stems with small, white or yellow flowers

How do you pronounce "bedstraw"?

Pronounced //ˈbɛd.stɹɔː//.

//ˈbɛd.stɹɔː// noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Noun

1
any plant of herb genus Galium of the madder family with small pointed leaves and hairy stems with small, white or yellow flowers countable, uncountable
2
any of several plants of the genus Galium wordnet
3
Any plant of the genus Cruciata. countable, uncountable
4
straw put into a bed countable, obsolete, uncountable
"Fleas breed principally of straw or mats, where there hath been a little moisture; or the chamber and bedstraw kept close and not aired"

"Fleas breed principally of straw or mats, where there hath been a little moisture; or the chamber and bedstraw kept close and not aired"

From Middle English bedstraw, bedstrau, bedde-straw, equivalent to bed + straw.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.