forb
noun
forb is a noun meaning “Any nonwoody flowering plant that is not a graminoid (a grass, sedge, or rush)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-O-R-B, and it appears about once in every 25 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of forb is forbs.
What does forb mean?
noun
- 1
Any nonwoody flowering plant that is not a graminoid (a grass, sedge, or rush).
noun
- 1
Initialism of freedom of religion or belief.
noun
- 1
Alternative letter-case form of FORB.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of forb
- forbs plural
- phorb
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is forb?
Forb appears about once in every 25 million words in written English, the 150,355th 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).
Forb in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense non-graminoid flowering plant:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | phorbe |
| Spanish | forbia |
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 forb come from?
Borrowed from Ancient Greek φορβή (phorbḗ, “food”), from φέρβω (phérbō, “to feed”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).