fool's-parsley

[ foolz-pahrs-lee ]

noun

1. an Old World fetid, poisonous plant, Aethusa cynapium, resembling parsley.

fool's-parsley

noun

1. an evil-smelling Eurasian umbelliferous plant, Aethusa cynapium , with small white flowers: contains the poison coniine

Word History and Origins

Origin of fool's-parsley¹

First recorded in 1745–55

Example Sentences

Summer had burnt up this abandoned pasturage, and while they sat in silence Guy rattled from the rank umbels of fool's-parsley and hemlock the innumerable seeds that would only profit the rankness of another year.

From Project Gutenberg

A jar of buttercups and fool's-parsley in the window-bottom kept her away in the meadows, where in the lush grass the moon-daisies were half-submerged, and a spray of pink ragged robin.

From Project Gutenberg

The sun shone brightly on little showers of buttercup down the bank, in the fields the fool's-parsley was foamy, held very high and proud above a number of flowers that flitted in the greenish twilight of the mowing-grass below.

From Project Gutenberg

On the other hand, the whole family of the umbellates, those tall plants with level bunches of tiny blossoms, like the fool's-parsley, have all but universally white petals; and Müller, the most statistical of naturalists, took the trouble to count the number of insects which paid them a visit.

From Project Gutenberg

Fool's-parsley, an unpleasantly smelling, very common plant, which leaves its odour on the hand if the seeds are squeezed or drawn through it, is said to cause numbers of deaths by being mistaken for common parsley and cooked.

From Project Gutenberg