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prettygoodwordgroundsel (GROWND-suhl) - n., any of over a thousand plants of genus Senecio and related genera with composite, usually yellow flowers.
Which means most groundsels are DYCs, which is a technical term from botany, being an acronym for Damn Yellow Composites. (I'm not joking about the technical term: that's what many botanists call just about any yellow composite flower of the Aster family, because they are often all-but-indistinguishable and rarely worth distinguishing anyway.) Common groundsel (S. vulgaris) has spread worldwide as a tenacious weed. Name dates back, in various forms, to Old English grundeswelge, earlier form gundeswelge -- which makes the first part not ground but gund, pus, which was quickly altered by folk etymology to add the -r-, while the second part is from swelgan, swallow/absorb, hinting at medicinal use.
---L.
Which means most groundsels are DYCs, which is a technical term from botany, being an acronym for Damn Yellow Composites. (I'm not joking about the technical term: that's what many botanists call just about any yellow composite flower of the Aster family, because they are often all-but-indistinguishable and rarely worth distinguishing anyway.) Common groundsel (S. vulgaris) has spread worldwide as a tenacious weed. Name dates back, in various forms, to Old English grundeswelge, earlier form gundeswelge -- which makes the first part not ground but gund, pus, which was quickly altered by folk etymology to add the -r-, while the second part is from swelgan, swallow/absorb, hinting at medicinal use.
---L.
