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samphire

UK /ˈsæm.faɪ.ə(ɹ)/noun

samphire is a noun meaning “Plants of genus Salicornia (syn. Salicornia)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled S-A-M-P-H-I-R-E and has 3 syllables, and it appears about once in every 9 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of samphire is samphires.

What does samphire mean?

noun

  1. 1

    Plants of genus Salicornia (syn. Salicornia)

  2. 2

    Marsh samphire, glasswort, pickleweed (Salicornia europaea), a plant once burned to produce ash used to make soda glass.

  3. 3

    Rock samphire (Crithmum maritimum).

  4. 4

    Golden samphire (Limbarda crithmoides, syn. Inula crithmoides).

  5. 5

    tree seaside tansy (Borrichia arborescens) of the West Indies.

  6. 6

    Plant of the species Gomphrena vermicularis

  7. 7

    Plants of genus Tecticornia

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

How do you pronounce samphire?

  • UK /ˈsæm.faɪ.ə(ɹ)/
  • UK /ˈsæm.fə(ɹ)/

Samphire has 3 syllables (counted from the pronunciation).

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

Forms of samphire

  • samphires plural

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

How common is samphire?

Samphire appears about once in every 9 million words in written English, the 91,522nd 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).

Samphire in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

In the sense marsh samphire:

LanguageWords
Frenchsalicorne
GermanQueller, Glasschmelz
Portuguesesalicórnia
Spanishsalicornia

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 samphire come from?

Originally sampiere, from French Saint Pierre (Saint Peter), the patron saint of fishermen, who often harvested the plant.

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