late Middle English word dating back to 1400–50
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
By recreating the glades which once existed in dense forest cover, they provide home for up to 120 flowering species, among them the devil's-bit scabious, globeflower, great burnet, lady's-mantle, oxeye daisy, pignut and wood crane's-bill.
From The Guardian ● Dec. 13, 2012
They were idle; and when we will not sow corn, the devil will be sure to sow weeds, night-shade, henbane, and devil's-bit.
From Literary Remains, Volume 1 by Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
Our feet rattled through black patches of devil's-bit scabius; we skirted a swim of thistle-down, which glistened when the moon touched it.
From The White Peacock by Lawrence, D. H. (David Herbert)
The root of the barberry gave wool a beautiful yellow, as did the leaves of the devil's-bit.
From Home Life in Colonial Days by Earle, Alice Morse
Her skillets smoked with dandelion, tobacco, aloeswood, and devil's bit, ready to welcome the spirits to cross over for a meal.
From "The Marvellers" by Dhonielle Clayton
Some who read the above may know scabious by other names as the "morning bride" or "sweet scabious" or "devil's bit," etc.
From Mother's Remedies Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers of the United States and Canada by Ritter, Thomas Jefferson
It is also called "colic root" and "devil's bit," because a piece is missing from each tuber as a rule, just as if bitten out.
From New, Old, and Forgotten Remedies: Papers by Many Writers by Anshutz, Edward Pollock
Many plants are named after the devil; there is, for instance, a species of Scabiosa called devil’s bit, because that eminent personage bit the root short off, and so it remains to this day.
From Springtime and Other Essays by Darwin, Francis, Sir
The hawk-weed, like the scabious, was termed "devil's bit," because the root looks as if it had been bitten off.
From The Folk-lore of Plants by Dyer, T. F. Thiselton (Thomas Firminger Thiselton)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
