kudzu

English

Kudzu covering several trees in Atlanta in the United States.

Etymology

From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Japanese クズ (葛, kuzu). The spelling kudzu (instead of kuzu) is due to historical transliteration methods of Japanese into English.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈkʊd.zuː/

Noun

kudzu (usually uncountable, plural kudzus)

1. An Asian vine (several species in the genus Pueraria, but mostly , syn. Pueraria lobata in the US), grown as a root starch, and which is a notorious invasive weed in the United States.

   Synonyms: Japanese arrowroot, mile-a-minute

   • 2011 August 31, Ashley Dawson, “Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor: An Interview with Rob Nixon”, in Social Text‎^[1]:

     Walled off communities, private jets, private security details are spreading like kudzu around the world.

Usage notes

• The kudzu invasive in the US apparently includes natural hybrids of four species of Pueraria: , , , and

Translations

an Asian vine

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 葛 (zh) (gé)

• Japanese: クズ (kuzu), 葛 (ja) (くず, kuzu)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Portuguese: kudzu (pt) m
• Russian: ку́дзу n (kúdzu), кудзу́ n (kudzú), пуэра́рия (ru) f (puerárija)

• Korean: ^{(please verify)} 칡 (chik)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}

Further reading

• kudzu on Wikipedia.Wikipedia