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What is "milkweed"

Crossword clues for milkweed

milkweed
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
milkweed
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ As protection against herbivores such as caterpillars, the milkweed produces chemical deterrents on its leaves.
▪ For the monarchs, Mr Harris brought down from Atlanta a special tall-growing variety of milkweed I had never seen before.
▪ In defending itself so thoroughly against the monarch, the milkweed became inseparable from the butterfly.
▪ Since most other animals avoid milkweed, the monarch caterpillars usually have the leaves all to themselves.
▪ The caterpillars of the monarch butterfly, surprisingly, are able to feed on milkweed without taking any of these precautions.
▪ The females lay their eggs on milkweed and the caterpillars feed on these plants until they pupate, prior to emerging as butterflies.
▪ They obtain their unpleasant flavour from the milkweed plant.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Milkweed

Milkweed \Milk"weed`\, n. (Bot.) Any plant of the genera Asclepias and Acerates, abounding in a milky juice, and having its seed attached to a long silky down; silkweed. The name is also applied to several other plants with a milky juice, as to several kinds of spurge. Its leaves are a favorite food source for the larvae of the monarch butterfly.

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Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
milkweed

1590s, from milk (n.) + weed (n.); used in reference to various plants whose juice resembles milk.

Wiktionary
milkweed

n. 1 Any of several plants, of the genus ''Asclepias'', that have a milky sap and have pods that split to release seeds with silky tufts. 2 A monarch butterfly.

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WordNet
milkweed

  1. n. any of numerous plants of the genus Asclepias having milky juice and pods that split open releasing seeds with downy tufts [syn: silkweed]

  2. annual Eurasian sow thistle with soft spiny leaves and rayed yellow flower heads [syn: Sonchus oleraceus]

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Wikipedia
Milkweed (novel)

Milkweed is a 2003 young adult historical fiction novel by American author Jerry Spinelli. The book is about a boy in Warsaw, Poland in the years of World War II during the Holocaust. Over time he is taken in by a Jewish group of orphans and he must avoid the Nazis (or "Jackboots") while living on the streets with other orphans. The story narrator is the boy in the future living in America recalling his past experiences. Despite being a historical fiction novel, Doctor Korczak, a minor character in the story is based on a real person named Janusz Korczak.

Milkweed is the tale of a boy with no identity at a time when one's identity meant the difference between life and death. Published in 2003, the novel became a popular young adult work used by English teachers to facilitate a discussion of the Holocaust. Readers are immersed in the experiences of a child who does not fully comprehend what is happening around him in the Warsaw Ghetto.

Milkweed (disambiguation)

Milkweed may refer to:

  • Any plant from the genus Asclepias (including Gomphocarpus)
  • Euphorbia heterophylla, native to the Americas
  • Euphorbia peplus, native to most of Europe, northern Africa, and western Asia
  • Milkweed (novel), a children's novel by author Jerry Spinelli
  • Milkweed Editions, an independent publishing company based in Minneapolis, MN
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Usage examples of "milkweed".

Leeta took a few shuffling steps forward, the milkweed pods on her belt clacking against each other.

Now to have these outsiders see me in the company of dumpy little Leeta, all milkweed and daisies hanging haphazardly around her ears.

Gradually, the claws on my sash, the milkweed pods, everything else prodding between our tightlocked bodies tweaked into more comfortable positions and drifted out of my consciousness.

His white hair lay all around him on the ground, and his beard spread out around his small brown face so that he looked like a milkweed seed.

This pollen from the transgenetic corn, or TG corn, then lands in the milkweed that surrounds most cornfields.

Oh, yes, I suspect a few butterflies have died from eating milkweed with TG corn pollen on it.

The others saw the monster as it leaped upon and murdered a vividly colored caterpillar on a milkweed near the limit of vision.

But already on the far side of the milkweed, an ant-lion climbed up to do murder among them.

This ant-lion charged into the placidly feeding aphids on the milkweed plant.

There was this level space, and on it there were toadstools and milkweed, and there was food.

She picked a pod of milkweed and blew on it until the seeds lifted into the sky.

She has always told me that you could blow your bad fortune away by doing so, and as I watched the milkweed drift upward into the sky, I wished I still believed in things like that.

Moonlight spills across the lawns on Maple Street and what looks like little stars are floating right past, a wave of milkweed spores, luminous and mysterious as they drift through the dark.

He had played with the milkweed pods at the edge of the little flat square while his father and his grandfather went through the complicated sparring dances with wooden swords or bamboo pikes festooned on each end with colored ribbons to better describe the swing and swirl of the maneuver.

Within this educational greenhouse, Janie was not so much orchid as sturdy milkweed blossom.