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ephedra

/ˈɛfɪdɹə/noun

ephedra is a noun meaning “Any plant of the genus Ephedra of gymnosperm shrubs” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled E-P-H-E-D-R-A, and it appears about once in every 10 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of ephedra is ephedras.

What does ephedra mean?

noun

  1. 1

    Any plant of the genus Ephedra of gymnosperm shrubs.

  2. 2

    A stimulant derived from the plant Ephedra sinica used in traditional Chinese herbal medicine and in over-the-counter weight-loss aids.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce ephedra?

  • /ˈɛfɪdɹə/
  • /ɪˈfɛdɹə/

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-ephedra.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of ephedra

  • ephedras plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is ephedra?

Ephedra appears about once in every 10 million words in written English, the 97,057th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Ephedra in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

In the sense plant:

LanguageWords
Frenchprêle des bois

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does ephedra come from?

From Ancient Greek ἐφέδρα (ephédra, “sitting upon”), from ἐπί (epí, “upon”) + ἕδρα (hédra, “seat”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).