charlock

[chahr-luhk]

noun

1. a wild mustard, Brassica kaber, having lobed, ovate leaves and clusters of small, yellow flowers, often troublesome as a weed in grainfields.

charlock

/ ˈtʃɑːlɒk /

noun

1. Also called: wild mustard. a weedy Eurasian plant, Sinapis arvensis (or Brassica kaber ), with hairy stems and foliage and yellow flowers: family: Brassicaceae (crucifers)

2. Also called: wild radish.  runch. a related plant, Raphanus raphanistrum, with yellow, mauve, or white flowers and podlike fruits

Word History and Origins

Origin of charlock¹

before 1000; Middle English cherlok, Old English cerlic < ?

Word History and Origins

Origin of charlock¹

Old English cerlic, of obscure origin

Example Sentences

I focused on the flora, here more rye mixed with charlock, and more lady’s bedstraw and wild carrot.

Read more on Washington Post

The earth was soft and crumbling, with a scattering of the weeds that are found in cultivated fields—fumitory, charlock, pimpernel and mayweed, all growing in the green gloom under the bean leaves.

Read more on Literature

The summer sun has pulverized and consumed all vegetation, and, but for a few chance patches of thistles, charlock or aramagos, there is nothing that can screen the birds from view.

Read more on Project Gutenberg

So I off-saddled and knee-haltered the horse, for there was no oat-hay in the shed for him, and he had to get what picking he could from the old lands, yellow with charlock.

Read more on Project Gutenberg

He had purposely selected a way that took them across many of young Whitmarsh’s ill-stocked fields, fields in which sedge and charlock wrote an indictment of neglected drains and half-hearted tillage.

Read more on Project Gutenberg