Cocklebur

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Any of the coarse composite weeds of the genus Xanthium, with a prickly fruit.

    "Fig. 1.—Spiculated pollens of ragweeds (ambrosias) low in protein. […] In the cocklebur (Xanthium americanum) and the rough wild elder (Iva ciliata), the spicules are shorter, being 0.7 and 0.5 microns, and the reaction is proportionately less active than with the ragweeds (ambrosias). […] While the grass pollens have so light a coat that they are frequently crushed in the ordinary process of mounting, the ragweed (ambrosias) pollen grains resist pressure between two glass slides carried to the point of crushing the glass."

  2. 2
    burdock having heart-shaped leaves found in open woodland, hedgerows and rough grassland of Europe (except extreme N) and Asia Minor; sometimes cultivated for medicinal and culinary use wordnet
  3. 3
    any coarse weed of the genus Xanthium having spiny burrs wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
arctium lappaclotburclotburcockle burcockle burrcockle-bur

Example

More examples

"One of the pigs ate a cocklebur plant and died."

Etymology

From cockle + bur.

Related phrases

Argentine cockleburbeach cockleburcommon cockleburrough cocklebursmoothish cockleburspiny cocklebur

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