tumbleweed
UK/ˈtʌmbəlwiːd//ˈtʌmbəlˌwid/
tumbleweed noun: any plant which habitually breaks away from its roots once dry, forming a light, rolling mass which is driven by the wind from place to place; as Russian thistle, wild indigo, witch grass, Amaranthus albus, etc.
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Noun
tumbleweed (countable and uncountable, plural tumbleweeds)
- Any plant which habitually breaks away from its roots once dry, forming a light, rolling mass which is driven by the wind from place to place; as Russian thistle, wild indigo, witch grass, Amaranthus albus, etc.
- Synonyms:
- roly-poly, steppe-witch, wind-witch
- Describing unwanted silence and inactivity. Often used of a situation when one makes a statement that is ignored or ill-received by one's audience, as the resultant silence is likened to that of a desolate desert with rolling tumbleweeds.
- Putting an ad in the local paper that Spock's Beard and Arena are in town will get you a tumbleweed response and some wasted revenue.2000 January 21, Plsntgrn, “Re: SOAR Budget (A Long Guestimate)”, in alt.music.progressive
- “Why do families argue?” may only induce the tumbleweed response. (Could you answer that question out of the blue?)2005, Trevor Wright, How to Be a Brilliant English Teacher, →ISBN, page 68
- A tan colour, like that of a tumbleweed.
tumbleweed meaning in Tamil and Arabic
tumbleweed in Tamil
- பாலைவனத் தாவரம்
tumbleweed in Arabic
- plant which breaks loose and is driven by the wind
- حَشِيشَة مُتَدَحْرِجَة
Examples of tumbleweed in a sentence
- In Lubbock, where Sarah lived, there weren't any trees, just tumbleweeds and scrabbly old mesquite bushes.
- Others come on behind relentlessly and, in this way, it arrives before me as a tumbleweed of moving birds.
- Rodgers' pregame press conference was rammed, whilst Pellegrini's was attended by one man and his dog as tumbleweeds drifted by.
Synonyms of tumbleweed
Forms of tumbleweed
| plural | tumbleweeds |
|---|
Origin of tumbleweed
From tumble + weed.
Words formed from tumbleweed
- monster tumbleweed
- Palestinian tumbleweed
- Russian tumbleweed
- tumbleweed moment
Phrases with tumbleweed
Words that rhyme with tumbleweed
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- weed
- proceed
- stampede
- concede
- accede
- deed
- exceed
- need
- bede
- knead
- mislead
- plead
- rede
- swede
- cede
- creed
- godspeed
- heed
- intercede
- keyed
- leed
- meed
- precede
- recede
- a friend in need is a friend indeed
- beread
- greed
- he'd
- indeed
- interbreed
- kneed
- mead
- secede
- she'd
- sneed
- steed
- supersede
- underfeed
- we'd
- ye'd
- agreed
- anasheed
- aniseed
- atheed
- caid
- co-feed
- cofeed
- counterplead
Questions about tumbleweed
- What does tumbleweed mean?
- Tumbleweed means any plant which habitually breaks away from its roots once dry, forming a light, rolling mass which is driven by the wind from place to place; as Russian thistle, wild indigo, witch grass, Amaranthus albus, etc.
- What is tumbleweed in Tamil?
- Tumbleweed in Tamil is பாலைவனத் தாவரம். See Tumbleweed meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is tumbleweed?
- Tumbleweed is a noun.
- How do you pronounce tumbleweed?
- Tumbleweed is pronounced /ˈtʌmbəlwiːd/ (UK).
- What is the plural of tumbleweed?
- The plural of tumbleweed is tumbleweeds.
Words near tumbleweed in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tumbleweed (page history and authors); tumbleweed (Tamil Wiktionary) (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: en-us-tumbleweed.ogg.
Cite this entry: “tumbleweed.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tumbleweed. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.