chickweed

• chick-weed

From Middle English chykwed, chykewode, chike wed, chikewed, chekwede, a variant of chykynwede, chekyn-wede, cheken-wede (literally “chicken-weed”), equivalent to chick +‎ weed.

chickweed (usually uncountable, plural chickweeds)

1. Any of several small-leaved herbs of the genera Cerastium and Stellaria.
   1. especially common chickweed (Stellaria media), a common, edible weed in North America and Europe.
      • 1993, John Banville, Ghosts:

        I look at the little sprigs of chickweed trembling among the bean shoots and I am strangely moved. Such steadfastness! Such yearning! They want to live too. That is all they ask: to have their little moment in the world.

   2. Stellaria pro parte
   3. Cerastium (mouse-ear chickweed)
2. Other plants of similar appearance and habit, including those of species:
   1. Ageratum conyzoides
   2. Holosteum (jagged chickweed)
   3. Moenchia (upright chickweed)
   4. Paronychia spp.