pipeweed

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English[edit]

WOTD – 2 February 2024

Etymology[edit]

Tins of pipeweed (sense 1) or tobacco prepared for smoking in pipes.
Fertile stems of the pipeweed (sense 2.1), also known as the common horsetail or field horsetail (Equisetum arvense).
The pipeweed (sense 2.2) or desert trumpet (Eriogonum inflatum).
The redrattle (Pedicularis flammea), formerly also known as pipeweed (sense 3.1).
The sea lettuce (Ulva intestinalis) was also previously known as pipeweed (sense 3.2).

From pipe +‎ weed.[1]

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

pipeweed (uncountable)

  2. (smoking) Tobacco prepared for smoking in a pipe; also, the leaves of herbs or other plants prepared for such use.
    • [1792, [Jeremy Belknap], “Letter I. Original State of the Forest.—The Adventures of Walter Pipeweed, and Cecilius Peterson.”, in The Foresters, an American Tale: […], Boston, Mass.: […] I. Thomas and E. T. Andrews, […], →OCLC, pages 5–6:
      The ſtories told by one and another of theſe adventurers, had made a deep impreſſion on the mind of VValter Pipevveed, one of John [Bull]'s domeſtics, a fellovv of a roving and projecting diſpoſition, and vvho had learned the art of ſurveying.
      Used as a personification of the Colony of Virginia, from which Sir Walter Raleigh brought tobacco to England and popularized the practice of smoking it in the 16th century.]
    • 1954 November 11, J[ohn] R[onald] R[euel] Tolkien, “Flotsam and Jetsam”, in The Two Towers: Being the Second Part of The Lord of the Rings, 2nd edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Company, published 1965, →ISBN, book III, page 167:
      He produced a small leather bag full of tobacco. 'We have heaps of it, […] It was Pippin who found two small barrels, washed up out of some cellar or store-house, I suppose. When we opened them, we found they were filled with this: as fine a pipe-weed as you could wish for, and quite unspoilt.'
    • 1969, Michael Kurland, chapter 5, in The Unicorn Girl (The Greenwich Village Trilogy; 2), Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, published 2019, →ISBN, page 62:
      I took the pipe and sniffed. Pipeweed had the aroma of the finest Moroccan Mauve. I inhaled. It was strong stuff.
    • 2010, Arnan Heyden, “The Powers that Be”, in Daughters of Agendale: The Legend of Eloeen, Maitland, Fla.: Xulon Press, →ISBN, page 38:
      Over the dimming fire, the old man tossed him a small box, carved with similar markings. Inside, Amarden found two pouches, one containing ordinary pipeweed. The other pouch was gray, ahd a silver string to draw it shut, and contained a fine silvery substance. […] "What is this?" / "Pipeweed, of course!" he said from between teeth clenching his pipe. / "It looks like silver dust."
  3. Any of a number of plants having thin and straight stems resembling pipes, often hollow or lacking branches.
    • 1837 January, James Hamilton, “Buckland’s Bridgewater Treatise [review of Geology and Mineralogy Considered with Reference to Natural Theology (1836) by William Buckland]”, in Works of the Late Rev. James Hamilton, […], volume IV, London: James Nisbet & Co., […], published 1870, →OCLC, page 5:
      Equisetaceæ rivalled "the mast of some great ammiral," in localities where they dwarfed representatives, the horse-tail and pipe-weed of our bogs, stand only a few inches high.
      Originally published in the Presbyterian Review, volume IX, pages 222–246.
    2. (specifically) The common horsetail or field horsetail (Equisetum arvense).
    4. (specifically, US) The desert trumpet (Eriogonum inflatum) which has a straight stem with a swollen portion; formerly some Native American tribes in the Las Vegas Valley area turned such stems into pipes for smoking by removing the stem at the base and cutting the swollen portion in half to serve as a bowl.
  4. (obsolete)
    2. The redrattle (Pedicularis flammea), a parasitic plant having hollow stems.
    4. A type of seaweed with tubelike fronds; especially the sea lettuce (Ulva intestinalis).
      • 1829, John Brewster, “Appendix II. On the Natural History of the Vicinity.”, in The Parochial History and Antiquities of Stockton-upon-Tees; […], 2nd edition, Stockton-upon-Tees, County Durham: […] Thomas Jennett; and sold by John Richardson, […], →OCLC, paragraph 285, page 64:
        U. diaphana. Transparent Ulva—Pipe-weed. Occasionally cast up on the beach at Seaton. Some authors call this substance, Alcyonium gelatinosum, and others Alcyonium diaphanum. It has much the appearance of an animal production.
      • 1903, Henry Scherren, chapter IV, in A Popular Natural History of the Lower Animals (Invertebrates), London: Religious Tract Society, →OCLC, page 101; quoted in Gordon Dalgliesh, “Notes on the Whirlgig Beetle (Gyrinus natator)”, in W[illiam] L[ucas] Distant, editor, The Zoologist: A Monthly Journal of Natural History, volume XVI (4th series), number 182 (number 848 overall), London: West, Newman, & Co., […]; Simpkin, Marshall, & Co., 15 February 1912, →OCLC, page 70:
        The larva [of Gyrinus] is not well known, and not often met with by collectors. I have taken examples in the River Ant, not far from North Walsham. […] Both were found in pipe-weed (Entermorpha intestinalis), and it may be that this is the usual habitat.
    5. An unidentified sessile marine invertebrate, probably a soft coral or sponge.
      • 1755, John Ellis, “Of the Alcyonium”, in An Essay towards a Natural History of the Corallines, and Other Marine Productions of the Like Kind, Commonly Found on the Coasts of Great Britain and Ireland. […], London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, […]; J[ohn] and J[ames] Rivington, […]; and R[obert] and J[ames] Dodsley, […], →OCLC, pages 87–88:
        Alcyonium, ſeu Fucus nodoſus & ſpongioſus. […] Sea ragged Staff, called by the Fiſhermen Pipe-vveed, or Pudding-vveed. This irregular-ſhaped yellovv ſizy Subſtance, […] is found adhering to moſt kinds of marine Subſtances, on the Coaſt of Kent, near the Iſland of Sheppey particularly; ſo that it frequently becomes troubleſome to the Fiſhermen, by often clogging their Nets. […] This Alcyonium deſerves a more critical Enquiry. It appears at preſent to me, to be the Spavvn of ſome numerous Species of Shell-fiſh.

Translations[edit]

Equisetum arvense — see field horsetail
Eriogonum inflatum — see desert trumpet

References[edit]

  1. ^ “pipeweed, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, September 2023; “pipeweed, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading[edit]

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