Definition of "dodder" [dod•der]

• To shake or tremble, as from old age; totter. (verb-intransitive)
• To progress in a feeble, unsteady manner. (verb-intransitive)
• Any of various leafless, annual parasitic herbs of the genus Cuscuta that lack chlorophyll and have slender, twining, yellow or reddish stems and small whitish flowers. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The physician and herbalist John Gerard observed in 1597 that a pernicious crop-killer called dodder, or strangleweed, "changeth and altereth" according to its companion plants."
• "In Lubeck, a marc, called dodder cake, is made from the _Camelina sativa_."
• "Oaks covered with dodder, that is, with parasitic plants, and therefore dead or dying."