Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Rhubarb |
RhubarbNoun1. Long pinkish sour leafstalks usually eaten cooked and sweetened. 2. Plants having long green or reddish acidic leafstalks growing in basal clumps; stems (and only the stems) are edible when cooked; leaves are poisonous. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "rhubarb" was first used: sometime around 1390. (references) |
Etymology: Rhubarb \Rhu"barb\, noun. [French expression rhubarbe, Old French rubarbe, rheubarbe, reubarbare, reobarbe, Late Latin expression rheubarbarum for rheum barbarum, Greek rhubarb, from the river Rha (the Volga) on whose banks it grew. Originally, therefore, it was the barbarian plant from the Rha. Compare to Barbarous, Rhaponticine.]. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Dream Interpretation | To dream of rhubarb growing, denotes that pleasant entertainments will occupy your time for a while. To cook it, foretells spirited arguments in which you will lose a friend. To eat it, denotes dissatisfaction with present employment. Source: Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted .... |
Food & Agriculture | Any of various plants of the genus Rheum producing long fleshy dark red leaf-stalks used cooked as food. Source: European Union. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Rhubarb (Rheum Rhaponticum, Polygonaceae) is a perennial plant that grows from thick, short rhizomes. The large, somewhat triangular leaf blades are elevated on long, fleshy petioles. The flowers are small, greenish-white, and borne in large compound leafy inflorescences.
The plant is indigenous to Asia, but is now grown in many areas, primarily for its fleshy petioles, commonly known as rhubarb sticks. These can be cooked in a variety of ways. Stewed, they yield a tart sauce that can be eaten with sugar or used as filling for pies, tarts, and crumbles.
During the winter it disappears completely and begins to grow in early spring. It can be forced, that is, encouraged to grow early, by raising the local temperature. This is commonly done by placing an upturned bucket over the shoots as they come up.
The drug rheum is prepared from the rhizomes and roots of another species, Rheum officinale or Medicinal Rhubarb. This species is also native to Asia. Rheum is used as a strong cathartic and for its tonic effect on the mucous membranes of the nasal cavity.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Rhubarb."
Synonyms: RhubarbSynonyms: pieplant (n), rhubarb plant (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Disorder | Turmoil; ferment; (agitation); to-do, trouble, pudder, pother, row, rumble, disturbance, hubbub, convulsion, tumult, uproar, revolution, riot, rumpus, stour, scramble, brawl, fracas, rhubarb, fight, free-for-all, row, ruction, rumpus, embroilment, melee, spill and pelt, rough and tumble; whirlwind; bear garden, Babel, Saturnalia, donnybrook, Donnybrook Fair, confusion worse confounded, most admired disorder, concordia discors; Bedlam, all hell broke loose; bull in a china shop; all the fat in the fire, diable a' quatre, Devil to pay; pretty kettle of fish; pretty piece of work, pretty piece of business. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Rhubarb |
| English words defined with "rhubarb": Chrysophane ♦ Emodin ♦ genus Rheum ♦ Ochreated ♦ Polygonaceous ♦ Rhabarbarate, Rheic, Rheum, rhubarb pie, Rhubarby ♦ Wild pieplant. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "rhubarb": fruit picker ♦ HARVEST WORKER, FRUIT ♦ Misnomers. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "rhubarb": Rheic. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Never rub another man's rhubarb. (Batman; writing credit: Bob Kane; Sam Hamm) And if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce it tastes much more like prunes than rhubarb does (Animal Crackers; writing credit: George S. Kaufman; Morrie Ryskind) Still, on the other hand, water is water! And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does (Animal Crackers; writing credit: George S. Kaufman; Morrie Ryskind) May the fleas from your cow inflame your Rhubarb! (Ed, Edd n' Eddy; writing credit: Jan Dirchsen; Mikkel Dyrting) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Rhubarb (1951) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Theater & Movies | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit |  | Rhubarb stalk in southeastern Alaska. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | However, factors other than calcium and lactose content should be kept in mind when planning a diet. Some vegetables that are high in calcium (Swiss chard, spinach, and rhubarb, for instance) are not listed in figure 2 because the body cannot use their calcium content. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Rhubarb" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 82.76% of the time. "Rhubarb" is used about 87 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 82.76% | 72 | 39,377 |
| Noun (proper) | 9.2% | 8 | 124,375 |
| Lexical Verb (base form) | 6.9% | 6 | 143,867 |
| Lexical Verb (infinitive) | 1.15% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 87 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "rhubarb": bog rhubarb ♦ chinese rhubarb ♦ garden rhubarb ♦ himalayan rhubarb ♦ indian rhubarb ♦ Monk's rhubarb ♦ rhubarb pie ♦ rhubarb plant ♦ Turkey rhubarb. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "rhubarb": rhubarb-like, rhubarb-red. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "rhubarb"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | raven. (various references) | |
Arabic | الراوند عشبة بطاطية نافعة. (various references) | |
Blackfoot | pokínssomo. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | ревен (gregory-powder, pie-plant), караница (altercation, brabble, brawl, hassle, jar, wrangle), глъчка (clutter, din, outcry, racket, tumult), глупости (all my eye, applesauce, balderdash, baloney, blague, blah, bleat, blether, boloney, bosh, bull, buncombe, cod, crap, drivel, eyewash, fiddle-faddle, fiddlesticks, flapdoodle, footle, fudge, guff, gup, hokum, humbug, jiggery pokery, junk, kibosh, monkey business, monkeybusiness, nonsense, nuts, piffle, poppycock, punk, rot, rubbish, shucks, slush, stuff and nonsense, tack, tommy rot, truck, trumpery). (various references) | |
Chinese | 大黄. (various references) | |
Czech | reveò, rebarbora. (various references) | |
Danish | rabarber. (various references) | |
Dutch | rabarber. (various references) | |
Farsi | ریوندچینی(گ.ش.), ریواس , رنگ لیموءی (Lemon). (various references) | |
Finnish | raparperit, raparperi. (various references) | |
French | rhubarbe. (various references) | |
German | Rhabarber (pieplant, rhubarbs). (various references) | |
Greek | ρήο. (various references) | |
Hebrew | רבס. (various references) | |
Hungarian | rebarbara (pieplant). (various references) | |
Italian | rabarbaro (Chinese rhubarb, East Indian rhubarb, medicinal rhubarb). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 大黄 . (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | いおう (great king). (various references) | |
Manx | lus y taartys (monk's rhubarb). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | ubarbrhay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | ruibarbo (cultivated rhubarb, edible rhubarb, garden rhubarb, pieplant, rhapontic). (various references) | |
Romanian | rubarbã, revent (pieplant), rabarburã, murmur (babble, babbling, Bicker, brawl, chatter, garrulity, hum, moan, mumbling, murmur, mutter, prattle, ripple, rustle, rustling, warble), gãlãgie (Babel, bluster, brawling, bustle, clamor, clamour, din, discord, fuss, hubbub, hurly burly, jangle, noise, racket, rattle, rioting, row, stir, to-do, tumult), culoare maro deschis. (various references) | |
Russian | ревень (pieplant, pieplants). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | raven, svađa (affray, altercation, brawl, contention, disagreement, hassle, odds, quarrel, spat, squabble). (various references) | |
Spanish | ruibarbo. (various references) | |
Swedish | rabarber (pieplant). (various references) | |
Turkish | ravent (pieplant), saçma (absurd, applesauce, balls, baloney, blind, boloney, bunk, bunkum, chimerical, claptrap, cockeyed, dissemination, eradiation, fantastic, fantastical, farcical, fatuous, fiddle, fiddle-de-dee, fiddlesticks, foolish, for the birds, froth, frothy, fudge, go on, hog-wash, hooey, impertinent, inane, incongruous, inept, irrational, jabber wocky, kibosh, laugh, malarkey, nonsense, nonsensical, outlandish, paltry, pointless, poppycock, raving, rot, scattering, senseless, shot, shucks, skittles, small shot, smearcase, sorry, spinach, stuff, tommyrot, tosh, trash, trifling, tripe, trivial, trumpery, unreasonable, wacky, waffle, whacky), mırıldanma (grumbling, muttering), arka plandaki konuşma. (various references) | |
Ukrainian | ревінь. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Greek | 700 BCE-300 CE | rha barbaron. (various references) |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | RHEUM OFFICINALE. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "rhubarb": rhubarbs. (additional references) | |
| |
"Rhubarb" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Khubar, rhubarbed, rhubard, Roudbar, rubab, rubarb, Zhufbar. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-b-b-h-r-r-u" | |
-3 letters: babu, barb, buhr, bura, burr, habu. | |
-4 letters: arb, bah, bar, bra, brr, bub, bur, hub, rah, rub, urb. | |
-5 letters: ab, ah, ar, ba, ha, uh. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-b-b-h-r-r-u" | |
+1 letter: rhubarbs. | |
+4 letters: rabbitbrush. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Quotations: Non-fiction | 9. Usage Frequency 10. Expressions 11. Expressions: Internet 12. Translations: Modern | 13. Translations: Ancient 14. Derivations 15. Anagrams 16. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
