redroot

[red-root, -roo t]

noun

a North American plant, Lachnanthes caroliniana (or L. tinctoria), having sword-shaped leaves, woolly, yellowish flowers, and a root that is red in color.

any of various other plants having red roots, as the alkanet, Alkanna tinctoria, pigweed, Amaranthus retroflexus, and New Jersey tea, Ceanothus americanus.

Origin of redroot

An Americanism dating back to 1700–10; red¹ + root¹

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for redroot

Historical Examples of redroot

It does indeed look like a kind of forethought in the redroot.
A Year in the Fields
John Burroughs
He notes merely the white blossoms of the redroot peeping through the withered leaves, and the buds of the buckeye.
The Kentucky Warbler
James Lane Allen
Old lady Field she make medicine with snakeroot and larkspur and marshroot and redroot.
Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves
Work Projects Administration

British Dictionary definitions for redroot

redroot

noun

a bog plant, Lachnanthes tinctoria, of E North America, having woolly yellow flowers and roots that yield a red dye: family Haemodoraceae

another name for pigweed (def. 1)

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012