charlock

American  

[chahr-luhk] / ˈtʃɑr lək /

noun

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

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charlock British  

/ 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

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Etymology

Origin of charlock

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

Example Sentences

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.

From "Watership Down: A Novel" by Richard Adams

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.

From Tales from the Veld by Glanville, Ernest

The Orderly jumped up and ran to the stove where, in one of the niches, stood the bowl of charlock hearts, a wild green that tastes exactly like tender sprouts.

From Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks by Roy, Lillian Elizabeth

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.

From Max Carrados by Bramah, Ernest

You'll have to keep the charlock down, Jerrold, or it'll kill the crops.

From Anne Severn and the Fieldings by Sinclair, May