Standard Lemma guide

weedy

adj · 8 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

  • /ˈwiːdi/
  • Southern-England: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  • rhymes with -iːdi
  • CMU ARPABET: W IY1 D IY0 Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.

1

adj

Meaning 1

Abounding with weeds.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Examples

  • weedy grounds
  • a weedy garden
  • weedy corn
  • 1577, Barnabe Googe (translator), The Foure Bookes of Husbandry, collected by M. Conradus Heresbachius, London: Richard Watkins, Book 1, p. 27, Wheate delighteth in a leuell, riche, warme, and a drye ground: a shaddowy, weedy, and a hilly ground, it loueth not [...]

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

2

adj

Meaning 2

Of, relating to or resembling weeds.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: weedlike

Antonyms: none provided

3

adj

Meaning 3

Consisting of weeds.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Examples

  • 1917, James Joyce, “Flood” in Poetry, Volume 10, April-September, 1917, p. 73, A waste of waters ruthlessly Sways and uplifts its weedy mane, Where brooding day stares down upon the sea In dull disdain.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

4

adj

Meaning 4

Characteristic of a plant that grows rapidly and spreads invasively, and which grows opportunistically in cracks of sidewalks and disturbed areas.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Topics: biology, botany, natural-sciences

Examples

  • a weedy species
  • a weedy vine

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

5

adj

Meaning 5

Small and weak.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: figuratively

Examples

  • a weedy lad
  • 1924, Edith Wharton, The Spark (The Sixties), Chapter 2, in Old New York, New York: 1981, p. 146, Byrne was hurling himself across the field, crouched on the neck of his somewhat weedy mount [...]

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: scraggy, ungainly, angular, anorexic, carrion, emaciated, gangling, gangly, gaunt, haggard, macilent, lank, lanky, leptosome, pencil-necked, puny, rangy, rawboned, reedy, scrawny, skin and bones, skinny, starved, thin as a rake, undernourished, underweight, wasted, weedy

Antonyms: none provided

6

adj

Meaning 6

Lacking power or effectiveness.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: Ireland, UK, figuratively, informal

Examples

  • a weedy excuse
  • a weedy attempt
  • a weedy motor
  • 2016, Orla Kiely, quoted in “Designs for life from Orla Kiely,” Irish Independent, 3 April, 2016, We wanted to make sure that our jewellery made a statement, that it wasn't wimpy or weedy.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: feeble, anemic, breakable, broken-down, damaged, debilitated, decrepit, delicate, dickless, effete, enervated, enfeebled, exhausted, faint, flimsy, fragile, frail, harmed, hurt, impaired, impotent, infirm, injured, languid, low, powerless, prostrated, prostrate, puny, raddled, resistless, sapped, slightsoft, softened, susceptible, tender, tired, torpid, unresistant, vincible, vulnerable, wasted, weak, weakened, weary, weedy, wimpy, worn out, yielding

Antonyms: none provided

7

adjective

Meaning 7

abounding with or resembling weeds

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

Examples

  • a weedy path
  • weedy plants that take over a garden

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: weedless

8

adjective satellite

Meaning 8

being very thin

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

Examples

  • a child with skinny freckled legs
  • a long scrawny neck

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: scraggy, boney, scrawny, skinny, underweight

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-West Germanic *weud Old English wēod Middle English weed English weed English -y English weedy From weed + -y.

Across languages

Translations

14 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Bulgarian: буренясал (burenjasal) — abounding with weeds
  • Hungarian: gyomos — abounding with weeds
  • Māori: heu — abounding with weeds
  • Māori: heuheu — abounding with weeds
  • Māori: waipapa — abounding with weeds
  • Unami: skikwe — abounding with weeds
  • Bulgarian: кльощав (kljoštav) — small and weak
  • French: chétif — small and weak
  • German: schwächlich — small and weak
  • Māori: rehe — small and weak
  • Māori: tīmohea — small and weak
  • Māori: tūoi — small and weak
  • Portuguese: mirrado — small and weak
  • Spanish: enclenque — small and weak