fern
pronunciation
How to pronounce fern in British English:
UK [fɜːn]
How to pronounce fern in American English:
US [fɜːrn]
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- Noun:
- any of numerous flowerless and seedless vascular plants having true roots from a rhizome and fronds that uncurl upward; reproduce by spores
Word Origin
- fern
- fern: [OE] Fern is a fairly widespread Indo- European word, represented among the other West Germanic languages by German farn and Dutch varen. It comes ultimately from Indo- European *porno-. This also produced Sanskrit parnám, which meant ‘feather’ as well as ‘leaf’, suggesting that the fern may have been named originally from the feathery leaves of some species.
- fern (n.)
- Old English fearn "fern," from Proto-Germanic *farno- (cognates: Old Saxon farn, Middle Dutch vaern, Dutch varen, Old High German farn, German Farn). Possibly the word has a prehistoric sense of "having feathery fronds" and is from PIE *por-no-, which has yielded words for "feather, wing" (cognates: Sanskrit parnam "feather;" Lithuanian papartis "fern;" Russian paporot'; Greek pteris "fern," pteron "feather"), from the root *per- (2) "to lead, pass over" (see petition (n.)). The plant's ability to appear as if from nothing accounts for the ancient belief that fern seeds conferred invisibility (1590s). Filicology "science or study of ferns" (1848) is from Latin filix "fern."
Example
- 1. In other words , random numbers generated over and over using barnsley 's fern formula ultimately produce a unique fern-shaped object .
- 2. They studied how their ancestors pounded fern roots into flour , made snowberries into medicine and smoked salmon over alder wood fires .
- 3. 385 Million b.c. during the middle devonian period of the paleozoic era , a prehistoric fern adds a new growth ring to its trunk , creating the world 's first timeline .
- 4. You could still find the central rose walk , and the old dyke was white with strawberry blossoms and blue with violets and green with baby fern .
- 5. Life imposes her laws ; life blocks the way ; life 's behind the fern ; life 's the tyrant ; oh , but not the bully !