Word.ws English Dictionary

skunk cabbage

skunk cabbage noun: any of several leafy, foul-smelling plants, especially Symplocarpus foetidus, a low-growing plant native to the wetlands of eastern North America, but also denoting Lysichiton americanus and Lysichiton camtschatcense.

skunk cabbage: any of several leafy, foul-smelling plants, especially Symplocarpus foetidus, a low-growing plant...
Image: 松岡明芳, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

skunk cabbage (countable and uncountable, plural skunk cabbages)

  1. (Canada, US) Any of several leafy, foul-smelling plants, especially Symplocarpus foetidus, a low-growing plant native to the wetlands of eastern North America, but also denoting Lysichiton americanus and Lysichiton camtschatcense.
    • It was May before the skunk cabbage began to push up through the ooze of the swamps, before the rhubarb reddened to the back corner of the garden and the spring peepers finally emerged and began abrading the edges of the night with their lovesick vibrato.1993, TC Boyle, The Road to Wellville, Penguin, published 1994, page 297

skunk cabbage meaning in Persian

skunk cabbage in Persian

any of several leafy, foul-smelling plants
کلم مرداب kalam-e mordâb

Forms of skunk cabbage

pluralskunk cabbages

Origin of skunk cabbage

From skunk + cabbage, from the strong odor produced when the leaves are broken or torn.

Questions about skunk cabbage

What does skunk cabbage mean?
Skunk cabbage means any of several leafy, foul-smelling plants, especially Symplocarpus foetidus, a low-growing plant native to the wetlands of eastern North America, but also denoting Lysichiton americanus and Lysichiton camtschatcense.
What is skunk cabbage in Persian?
Skunk cabbage in Persian is کلم مرداب (kalam-e mordâb). See Skunk cabbage meaning in Persian.
What part of speech is skunk cabbage?
Skunk cabbage is a noun.
What is the plural of skunk cabbage?
The plural of skunk cabbage is skunk cabbages.

Words near skunk cabbage in the dictionary

  1. skunk apes
  2. skunk at a garden party
  3. skunk at the garden party
  4. skunk blackbird
  5. skunk blackbirds
  6. skunk cabbage
  7. skunk cabbages
  8. skunk dolphin
  9. skunk dolphins
  10. skunk grease
  11. skunk oil

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: skunk cabbage (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: “skunk cabbage.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/skunk_cabbage. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.