Poa

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A large genus of common grasses, many of them found in lawns, pastures and meadows across temperate regions
2. Any of the many small grasses in a widespread plant group that includes the familiar bluegrass of lawns and fields
3. The name for a broad group of grass plants, often called meadow grass, that grow in grasslands and disturbed ground

Etymology: Poa is the common name for grasses in the genus that botanists named "Poa," a Latinised form of the Ancient Greek "póa," meaning "fodder" or grass eaten by livestock. The word reached English as a scientific label, so it belongs to the vocabulary of taxonomy rather than everyday speech, and its meaning has stayed close to its origin: a name for a group of plants valued as pasture. The link to the Greek word is direct. Early botanists who sorted the grass family into genera reached back to classical Greek for names, and "póa" served as the label for these plants, which were the food of grazing animals. The genus name then passed into English without changing much, so a reader meeting it today is meeting a Greek word for animal feed, fixed in Latin by naturalists.