Word.ws English Dictionary

alfalfa

/ælˈfælfə/

alfalfa noun: a plant, principally of Medicago sativa, grown as a pasture crop.

alfalfa: a plant, principally of Medicago sativa, grown as a pasture crop
Image: Ivar Leidus, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

alfalfa (countable and uncountable, plural alfalfas)

  1. (uncountable) A plant, principally of Medicago sativa, grown as a pasture crop.
    • “No place for rabbits now, but I could easy build a few hutches and you could feed alfalfa to the rabbits.”1937, John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men, New York: Covici Friede, page 100
    Synonyms:
    lucerne
  2. (countable) A type or breed of this plant.

Proper noun capitalized: Alfalfa

Alfalfa

  1. An unincorporated community in Deschutes County, Oregon, United States.
  2. An unincorporated community in Caddo County, Oklahoma, United States, originally named Boise.
  3. (abbreviation, ellipsis) Ellipsis of Alfalfa County, Oklahoma.

alfalfa meaning in Tagalog, Arabic and Persian

alfalfa in Tagalog

Medicago sativa
alpalpa

alfalfa in Arabic

Medicago sativa
فَصْفَص faṣfaṣ

alfalfa in Persian

Medicago sativa
یونجه, اسپست espest, aspest

Synonyms of alfalfa

Forms of alfalfa

pluralalfalfas

Origin of alfalfa

PIE word *h₁éḱwos Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *HéHḱus Proto-Indo-European *h₁éḱwos Proto-Indo-Iranian *Háćwas Proto-Iranian *Hácwah Proto-Iranian *Hástiš Proto-Iranian *HacwaHastiš Old Median *aspāstišder. Arabic فَصْفَص (faṣfaṣ)bor. Old Spanish alfalfez Spanish alfalfabor. English alfalfa From Spanish alfalfa, from Old Spanish alfalfez, from Arabic الْفَصْفَصَة (al-faṣfaṣa, “alfalfa, lucerne”).

From alfalfa, from Spanish, from Arabic.

Words formed from alfalfa

Phrases with alfalfa

Questions about alfalfa

What does alfalfa mean?
Alfalfa means a plant, principally of Medicago sativa, grown as a pasture crop.
What is alfalfa in Tagalog?
Alfalfa in Tagalog is alpalpa. See Alfalfa meaning in Tagalog.
What part of speech is alfalfa?
Alfalfa can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce alfalfa?
Alfalfa is pronounced /ælˈfælfə/.
What is the plural of alfalfa?
The plural of alfalfa is alfalfas.

Words near alfalfa in the dictionary

  1. alfajors
  2. alfaki
  3. alfakih
  4. alfakihs
  5. alfakis
  6. alfalfa
  7. alfalfa butterflies
  8. alfalfa butterfly
  9. alfalfa caterpillar
  10. alfalfa caterpillars
  11. Alfalfa County

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: alfalfa (page history and authors); Alfalfa (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-alfalfa.wav.

Cite this entry: “alfalfa.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/alfalfa. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.