Word.ws English Dictionary

mare's fart

mare's fart noun: ragwort (Jacobaea vulgaris).

mare's fart: ragwort (Jacobaea vulgaris)
Image: Photo by David J. Stang, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

mare's fart (plural mare's farts)

  1. Ragwort (Jacobaea vulgaris).
    • [...] ragwort posed the principle weed problem, many fields being heavily infested. The still-used local [name] of mare’s fart in adjacent North Shropshire and Cheshire [...] suggest how loathed the malodorous foliage is by cattle farmers.1998, Mabey, Richard, Flora Britannica - The Concise Edition, page 16
    • Ragwort’s other [name] of ‘mare’s fart’ refer[s] to the sharp smell of the leaves, caused by alkaloids. These can cause liver damage to horses, but only if fed dried in fodder, as the sharp taste of the fresh plant deters horses in the field.2016, Hoyland, Graham, Walking through spring : an English journey, page 226
  2. A nickname for any of several other types of flowers, including the fleabane and dandelion.
    • Dating from the middle of the last century, the expression ‘like a fart in a colander’ is still in common use to indicate restlessness or any flustered aimless activity. So too, in some dialects the traditional name mare’s fart is still used for the plant otherwise known as fleabane.1996, McDonald, James, The Wadsworth dictionary of obscenity & taboo, page 50
    • The dandelion was long popularly known as the ‘pissabed’ because of its supposed diuretic properties, and other names in everyday use included mare’s fart, [...] open arse and bum-towel. One or two of these earthy appellations may unwittingly survive in English yet.2003, Bryson, Bill, A Short History of Nearly Everything, page 435
  3. (idiomatic, vulgar) Something of no value, importance, or consequence whatsoever; a thing utterly not cared about.
    • See also: give a damn, give a tinker's damn, give a rat's arse, give a fig
    • Your lamentation grieves me. See here, in the name of a mare’s fart! If my horse has fallen, why should I be blamed?1956, Heinrich Wittenwile, “The Courtship”, in Ring, page 7

Noun (2) capitalized: Mare's Fart

Mare's Fart (plural Mare's Farts)

  1. Alternative letter-case form of mare's fart.

Noun (3) capitalized: Mare's fart

Mare's fart (plural Mare's farts)

  1. Alternative letter-case form of Mare's Fart.

Synonyms of mare's fart

Forms of mare's fart

pluralmare's farts
alternative formMare's Fart
pluralMare's Farts
pluralMare's farts

Origin of mare's fart

From mare + s + fart. A nickname stemming from the unpleasant smell of the plant's leaves. Primarily used by cattle farmers in North Shropshire and Cheshire.

Questions about mare's fart

What does mare's fart mean?
Mare's fart means ragwort (Jacobaea vulgaris).
What part of speech is mare's fart?
Mare's fart is a noun.
What is the plural of mare's fart?
The plural of mare's fart is mare's farts.

Words near mare's fart in the dictionary

  1. mare
  2. mare clausum
  3. Mare Harbor
  4. Mare Harbour
  5. mare liberum
  6. mare's fart
  7. mare's leg
  8. mare's legs
  9. mare's milk
  10. mare's nest
  11. mare's nests

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mare's fart (page history and authors); Mare's Fart (page history and authors); Mare's fart (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.

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Cite this entry: “mare's fart.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mare%27s_fart. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.