As a writer, I am a wordsmith and always curious about words and their meaning. <a href="https://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/grass.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-5695" src="https://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/grass.jpg?w=131" alt="grass" width="131" height="300" /></a>

Seeing sprouts of green finally show up on my lawn here in the mountains made me think about the word <em>GRASS</em>.

The literal meaning: <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/grass?s=t">any plant of the family Gramineae, having jointed stems, sheathing leaves, and seedlike grains</a>.

The slang meaning: <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=grass">Marijuana</a>.

But the word GRASS can also be a symbol.
<ul>
	<li>Once a name for spring or early summer, today the appearance of grass in yards signals the coming of spring.</li>
	<li>In his poem, “Grass,” Carl Sandburg used the word symbolically to represent the waste and meaninglessness of war:</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em>Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work—
I am the grass; I cover all…</em></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em>Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?</em></p>

<ul>
	<li style="text-align:left;">In <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%20103&amp;version=ASV%20" target="_blank">Psalm 103:15-16</a> GRASS illustrates the brevity of human existence:</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em> As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourishes. </em></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em>For the wind passes over it, and it is gone; and the place where it was shall know it no more.</em></p>
The word GRASS can be found in idioms.
<ul>
	<li><em>Go</em> <em>to</em> <em>grass</em> is to retire from one's occupation or profession</li>
	<li><em>Let the grass grow under one's feet</em> is become slack in one's efforts.</li>
	<li><em>The grass is always greener on the other side (of the fence)</em> implies different circumstances wouldn’t be better.</li>
	<li><em>A snake in the grass</em> refers to a false friend</li>
	<li><em>Grassroots </em>refers to the common people or bottom of the political pyramid political pyramid, opposite the “establishment,” which controls the top.</li>
</ul>
YOUR TURN: Can you think of other ways the word GRASS is used?