Meaning

noun any of various plants of the genus Stellaria

noun any of various plants related to the common chickweed

originFrom Middle English chykwed, chykewode, chike wed, chikewed, chekwede, a variant of chykynwede, chekyn-wede, cheken-wede (literally “chicken-weed”), equivalent to chick + weed. Etymonline claims the name was apparently applied to many plants fit for chicken feed, which were called in Old English cicene mete (“chicken food”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0