Crazyweed

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A poisonous pea-family plant of western North America whose ingestion makes grazing animals behave erratically
2. Any of several toxic legumes native to western American rangelands that drive livestock into strange, uncoordinated conduct
3. A leguminous range plant containing a neurotoxin that causes livestock to act erratically when they eat it

Etymology: Crazyweed is a compound of "crazy" and "weed", and the name describes what the plant does rather than what it looks like. Several North American plants in the genus Oxytropis and related locoweeds are called crazyweed because livestock that eat them develop erratic, disoriented behaviour over time, a condition that has been recognised by ranchers across the western United States and Canada. The first element, "crazy", is a word that has moved a long way from its origins. It comes from "craze", meaning to crack or break, and in English it came to describe a broken or unsound mind. "Weed", the second element, is an older word for any plant, and only later narrowed to mean an unwanted one. Joined together, the two words give a plain, descriptive name: a plant that makes animals crazy.

Synonyms: locoweed