rhubarb
Is it a Scrabble word? See definition, points, and words you can make.
Is rhubarb a Scrabble word?
Word Games
- Scrabble US/Canada (OTCWL) Yes
- Scrabble UK (SOWPODS) Yes
- Wordle No
- Words With Friends Yes
What is the meaning of rhubarb?
Definition
noun (English)
1. (often attributive) The leafstalks of common rhubarb or garden rhubarb (usually known as Rheum × hybridum), which are long, fleshy, often pale red, and with a tart taste, used as a food ingredient; they are frequently stewed with sugar and made into jam or used in crumbles, pies, etc.Examples: "Rhubarb Tarts. Take the ſtalks off the rhubarb that grows in the garden, peel the ſkin off, and cut them the ſize of a gooſeberry, put them into china or earthen-ware patty-pans, with ſugar over them, and put on a paſte either puff or tart, ice them, and bake them the ſame as green gooſeberries, and they will eat like them."; "June is normally pie time, because it's when the strawberries come in. The summer before Dad died they were unusally plentiful at our local farmers' market, and Mom made almost a dozen of her strawberry rhubarbs—the ones with the tapioca mixed in—because she knew it was his favorite."Synonyms: tuskyattributivecountableoftenuncountable
2. (British, military, aviation, historical) A Royal Air Force World War II code name for operations by aircraft (fighters and fighter-bombers) involving low-level flight to seek opportunistic targets.Examples: "On 13 December 1942, Squadron Leader [Brian] Lane made his first flight from Ludham, a local familiarisation flight. That afternoon, he led a section of Spitfires low over the North Sea on a ‘Rhubarb’, a low-level sweep over the Dutch coast, looking for targets of opportunity."Britishcountablehistoricaluncountable
3. (Saskatchewan, Ottawa Valley) A ditch alongside a road or highway.Examples: "Driving home yesterday, I almost hit the rhubarb."countableuncountable
verb (English)
1. (British, military, aviation) Of fighter aircraft: to fire at a target opportunistically.British
noun (English)
1. (originally theater, uncountable) General background noise caused by several simultaneous indecipherable conversations, which is created in films, stage plays, etc., by actors repeating the word rhubarb; hence, such noise in other settings.Examples: "It [the film The Picnic] wasn't actually a silent film; there were sound effects, but the dialogue was a rhubarb-ish series of grunts and mutters."; "Back in the bedroom next door, the conversation is moving from subdued rhubarb to a cackle."uncountable
2. (UK, uncountable, by extension) Nonsense; false utterance.Examples: "MADAME JOURDAIN: No, it’s all complete rhubarb. MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Dara dara bastonnara! He begins to dance and chant. MADAME JOURDAIN: Don’t think that’s going to make things any clearer."; "On my second day in the market garden our group spent all day moving empty rhubarb boxes to one side of a courtyard and all afternoon moving them back again. ‘Makes a change from talking rhubarb in the House of Commons I expect,’ said one of my fellow labourers."; "People’s minds really serve up a lobar of rhubarb with the inner dialogue they tell themselves."UKbroadlyuncountable
3. (US, originally baseball, countable) An excited, angry exchange of words, especially at a sporting event.Examples: "Out in the bullpen, Chip Hilton and Soapy Smith had stopped throwing to watch the argument—what ballplayers call a "rhubarb.""; "Richie Ashburn slid into third, and Billy Cox, Dodger third baseman, made the tag, [Umpire Beans] Reardon yelled "safe" but raised his hand in the "out" sign. Naturally, a rhubarb."UScountable
4. (US, originally baseball, by extension, countable) A brawl.Examples: "But damned if it don't seem like killin' him would stir up an even bigger political rhubarb. I mean, it ain't like nobody'd have to be told who did it."USbroadlycountable
verb (English)
1. (intransitive, originally theater) Of an actor in a film, stage play, etc.: to repeat the word rhubarb to create the sound of indistinct conversation; hence, to converse indistinctly, to mumble.Examples: "At Rick's side our local Liberal Party Chairman is smacking his yeoman's paws together and rhubarbing ecstatically in Rick's ear."; "I suspect it's these pictures that —— and his cronies have in mind when they rhubarb on about iconicity and retro imagery and the 'solid, uncomplicated, talismanic Englishness' (that is, counterfeit Americanness) of the immediate post-war years that I'm supposed to represent."; "They gathered under the giant chandelier, elegant little women with scraped-back hair, feet in the turned-out position, arms in the first or, for those with handbags, in the third, and one or two sur le cou-de-pied, for all the world as if they were rhubarbing in a crowd scene twenty-five years before."intransitive
2. (transitive) To articulate indistinctly or mumble (words or phrases); to say inconsequential or vague things because one does not know what to say, or to stall for time.Examples: "Ordinarily this group of egos rhubarbed about matters as trivial as whose turn it was to order the next round, but tonight they were united in their project, and while men were killing one another all over the world, a strange peace had broken out among America's swim coaches."transitive
Definition source: Wiktionary