Other forms: dandelions
A dandelion is a yellow weed that turns into a clock of seeds. Blow a dandelion clock, dandelion leaves, dandelions on the lawn.
It sets seed without needing to be pollinated at all, which is why every plant on a lawn is effectively a copy and why they are so hard to be rid of. The whole plant is edible, and the roots have been roasted as a coffee substitute.
1noundandelionA yellow weed that turns into a clock of seeds.
“The lawn was covered in bright yellow dandelions.”
dandelion is a plant.
Old French dent de lion means lion's tooth, from the jagged shape of the leaves.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₃ed- (bite)
Latin
dēns leōnis
Old French
dent de lion — lion's tooth
Middle English
dentdelyon
English, today
dandelion
From Middle English dentdelyon, from Old French dent de lion (“lion's tooth”), also in Latin dēns leōnis, referring to the jagged shape of the plant's leaves. The term is now rare in French (together with liondent, calque from Germanic), but compare Spanish diente de león, Portuguese dente-de-leão, Italian dente di leone, German Löwenzahn, Norwegian Bokmål løvetann, Welsh dant y llew, all descendants, calques, or loan translations of the Latin term. late 14th c. Displaced various words, including native ǣġwyrt, native houndes-tooth, and tell-time and swine's snout; and mostly displaced cankerwort, monk's head, and pissabed.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA