sweet pea

American  

noun

1. a climbing plant, Lathyrus odoratus, of the legume family, having sweet-scented flowers.

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sweet pea British  

noun

1. a climbing leguminous plant, Lathyrus odoratus, of S Europe, widely cultivated for its butterfly-shaped fragrant flowers of delicate pastel colours

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Etymology

Origin of sweet pea

First recorded in 1725–35

Example Sentences

Dr. Biden said the dinner had been designed with springtime in Washington in mind, and the decorations would evoke a garden of her favorite flowers, including sweet pea, roses and peonies.

From New York Times • Apr. 9, 2024

A grandmother’s favorite sweet pea, a tree planted to honor a baby’s birth or in memory of a loved one, carry heartfelt sentiment and strengthen generational connections.

From Seattle Times • Feb. 9, 2024

In the year that followed, he made dozens of sentences at a painstaking rate of about one character per minute: “Goulash soup and sweet pea soup.”

From Science Magazine • Mar. 22, 2022

The sweet pea soup with coconut and ginger from Comoros comes together quickly and tastes like your favorite cozy sweater feels.

From Washington Post • Dec. 9, 2020

To find a documented poisoning attributable to wild sweet pea, I had to go all the way back to the nineteenth-century annals of Arctic exploration.

From "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer