stinging nettle

American  

noun

stinging nettles plural

1. a bristly, stinging Eurasian nettle, Urtica dioica, naturalized in North America, having forked clusters of greenish flowers, the young foliage sometimes cooked and eaten like spinach by the Scots.

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stinging nettle British  

noun

1. See nettle

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• stinging nettles
  plural

Etymology

Origin of stinging nettle

First recorded in 1515–25

Example Sentences

There’s also a less pervasive threat, stinging nettle.

From Los Angeles Times • May 24, 2023

For instance, stinging nettle works just as fast as any antihistamine for hay fever, without any of the downside of the antihistamine.

From New York Times • Jun. 22, 2017

In the understory, last fall’s leaves softened by winter’s rainfall are punctuated with the first growth of stinging nettle.

From Seattle Times • Feb. 21, 2017

There have been times where it has felt like someone is holding a stinging nettle to my face.

From BBC • Oct. 14, 2016

She caught a fleeting glimpse of the last speaker, her long, thin neck and green sunbonnet sticking up out of a tangle of bushes, like a stinging nettle in a garden.

From In Orchard Glen by MacGregor, Mary Esther Miller