Library / English Dictionary

GREENS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Any of various leafy plants or their leaves and stems eaten as vegetables

Synonyms:

green; greens; leafy vegetable

Classified under:

Nouns denoting foods and drinks

Hypernyms ("greens" is a kind of...):

veg; vegetable; veggie (edible seeds or roots or stems or leaves or bulbs or tubers or nonsweet fruits of any of numerous herbaceous plant)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "greens"):

chop-suey greens (succulent and aromatic young dark green leaves used in Chinese and Vietnamese and Japanese cooking)

sprout (a newly grown bud (especially from a germinating seed))

beet green (young leaves of the beetroot)

chard; leaf beet; spinach beet; Swiss chard (long succulent whitish stalks with large green leaves)

salad green; salad greens (greens suitable for eating uncooked as in salads)

dandelion green (edible leaves of the common dandelion collected from the wild; used in salads and in making wine)

lamb's-quarter; pigweed; wild spinach (leaves collected from the wild)

wild spinach (leafy greens collected from the wild and used as a substitute for spinach)

turnip greens (tender leaves of young white turnips)

common sorrel; sorrel (large sour-tasting arrowhead-shaped leaves used in salads and sauces)

French sorrel (greens having small tart oval to pointed leaves; preferred to common sorrel for salads)

spinach (dark green leaves; eaten cooked or raw in salads)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Present simple (third person singular) of the verb green

Credits

 Context examples: 

If so, it sharpened his appetite; for I distinctly call to mind that, although he had eaten a good deal of pork and greens at dinner, and had finished off with a fowl or two, he was obliged to have cold boiled bacon for tea, and disposed of a large quantity without any emotion.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The ground was wet, the rocks dripping, the grass and ever-greens sparkling with beads of moisture; yet the camp was loud with laughter and merriment, for a messenger had ridden in from the prince with words of heart-stirring praise for what they had done, and with orders that they should still abide in the forefront of the army.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The tomb in the day-time, and when wreathed with fresh flowers, had looked grim and gruesome enough; but now, some days afterwards, when the flowers hung lank and dead, their whites turning to rust and their greens to browns; when the spider and the beetle had resumed their accustomed dominance; when time-discoloured stone, and dust-encrusted mortar, and rusty, dank iron, and tarnished brass, and clouded silver-plating gave back the feeble glimmer of a candle, the effect was more miserable and sordid than could have been imagined.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)