shepherd's purse
shepherd's purse noun: an edible weed, Capsella bursa-pastoris, family Brassicaceae, native to Europe but now found world-wide.
Noun
shepherd's purse (uncountable)
- An edible weed, Capsella bursa-pastoris, family Brassicaceae, native to Europe but now found world-wide.
- To him that hath a flux, of Sheepheards purse he gives1612, Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion, song 13 p. 218
- Stewed nettles; savoury messes of chickweed sprinkled with nutmeg; he cooks the foliage of shepherd's purse as if it were cabbage.1979, Angela Carter, “The Erl-King”, in The Bloody Chamber, Vintage 2006, page 98
- Synonyms:
- shepherd's pouch
shepherd's purse meaning in Arabic
shepherd's purse in Arabic
- Capsella bursa-pastoris
- كِيس الرَاعِي kīs ar-rāʕī
Synonyms of shepherd's purse
Origin of shepherd's purse
Alluding to the shape of its seed vessel. Compare mediaeval Latin bursa pastoris, French bourse-à-berger, German Hirtentasche.
Questions about shepherd's purse
- What does shepherd's purse mean?
- Shepherd's purse means an edible weed, Capsella bursa-pastoris, family Brassicaceae, native to Europe but now found world-wide.
- What is shepherd's purse in Arabic?
- Shepherd's purse in Arabic is كِيس الرَاعِي (kīs ar-rāʕī). See Shepherd's purse meaning in Arabic.
- What part of speech is shepherd's purse?
- Shepherd's purse is a noun.
Words near shepherd's purse in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: shepherd's purse (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-shepherd's purse.wav.
Cite this entry: “shepherd's purse.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shepherd%27s_purse. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.