tumbleweed

[ tuhm-buhl-weed ]

/ ˈtʌm bəlˌwid /

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noun

any of various plants, as Amaranthus albus, A. graecizans, or the Russian thistle, Salsola kali, whose branching upper parts become detached from the roots and are driven about by the wind.

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Origin of tumbleweed

An Americanism dating back to 1885–90; tumble + weed¹

Words nearby tumbleweed

tumble home, tumbler, tumbler gear, tumbler switch, tumble to, tumbleweed, tumbling, tumbling barrel, tumbling box, tumbrel, tumefacient

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use tumbleweed in a sentence

Tumbleweeds blew across the road, and as I turned off the highway I spotted some of the area’s famous wild horses.
Inside a battery recycling facility|Casey Crownhart|October 5, 2022|MIT Technology Review
If you’re looking for a cutting-edge laptop that won’t leave tumbleweeds in your bank account, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 is the one to get.
Best gaming laptops of 2022|Chris Coke|March 30, 2022|Popular-Science
The proteins that control our lives are like rolling tumbleweeds.
This Algorithm Designs Proteins From Scratch to Accelerate Drug Discovery|Shelly Fan|March 24, 2022|Singularity Hub
Tumbleweeds are a-blowin’ down the aisles of your local bike shop.
Long Live Old Bikes|Eben Weiss|June 8, 2021|Outside Online

The film opens on a tumbleweed blowing through the twilight streets of Los Angeles and closes with a cowboy soliloquy.
Dudes and Maudes Abide at New York City Lebowski Fest|Rich Goldstein|August 25, 2014|DAILY BEAST
But then the movie kind of started skipping along like some tangled tumbleweed of confusion.
‘American Hustle’ Is Overrated|Kevin Fallon|January 28, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Elsewhere Andrew's engagements are met with a deafening silence and the roll of tumbleweed.
Prince Andrew's Lonely Globetrotting Life|Tom Sykes|September 19, 2013|DAILY BEAST
When twilight came he had found a perch in a pile of tumbleweed, far from the sheltering bushes by the river.
The Biography of a Prairie Girl|Eleanor Gates
If he ever came up to a tumbleweed he would lie right down on it and go to sleep.
The Voyage of the Rattletrap|Hayden Carruth
Besides the cactus, another form of vegetation which began to attract more and more of Ollie's attention was the red tumbleweed.
The Voyage of the Rattletrap|Hayden Carruth
The ordinary tumbleweed, green when growing and gray when tumbling, had long been familiar to us, but the red variety was new.
The Voyage of the Rattletrap|Hayden Carruth
The tumbleweed banked high wherever, in the mysterious dispensations of Providence, a call for tumbleweed had made itself heard.
The Killer|Stewart Edward White

British Dictionary definitions for tumbleweed

tumbleweed

/ (ˈtʌmbəlˌwiːd) /

noun

any densely branched plant that breaks off near the ground on withering and is rolled about by the wind, esp one of several amaranths of the western US and Australia

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