kudzu vine

[kood-zoo]

noun

1. a fast-growing Chinese and Japanese climbing vine, Pueraria lobata, of the legume family, now widespread in the southern U.S., having tuberous, starchy roots and stems: used for fiber, as food and forage, and to prevent soil erosion.

Word History and Origins

Origin of kudzu vine¹

1900–05; < Japanese kuzu, earlier kudu, of uncertain origin

Example Sentences

It’s increasingly the political equivalent of the kudzu vine that overruns everything in its path.

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In the Mississippi River, it is Asian carp; in the Everglades, Burmese pythons; in the Great Lakes, Russian zebra mussels; in the South, Indochinese kudzu vine.

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"All I've ever wanted / was to kiss crevices, pry them open, / and flourish within dew-slick / hollows," he explains, writing in the voice of a kudzu vine.

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From the kudzu vine to the gypsy moth to the Burmese python surge in the Everglades, we often discover the impact of a species only when it’s too late.

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Another major difference is that Eastern China is largely blessed with fertile, rainy climate which means that all manners of greenery run rampant; this is after all the region which gifted us with kudzu vine.

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