awn
Americannoun
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a bristlelike appendage of a plant, especially on the glumes of grasses.
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such appendages collectively, as those forming the beard of wheat, barley, etc.
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any similar bristle.
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of awn
1250–1300; Middle English aw ( u ) n, agune, agene, probably < Scandinavian; compare Old Norse ǫgn, Old Danish aghn husk; replacing and cognate with Old English ægnan; cognate with Gothic ahana, Old High German agana ( German Agen, Ahne ), Dutch, Frisian agen; OL agna ear of grain, Czech osina awn; Greek ákaina thorn, bristle, ákhnē chaff (< a pre-Hellenic substratum language); < Indo-European *Haeḱ- sharp
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
A thin film it leaves behind makes the awn an even better spot for condensation, making water collection yet more efficient.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 7, 2016
He at one point invoked the excesses of “King Jahge,” a tyrant who “made judges dependent awn his will alone.”
From Slate ● Jan. 5, 2015
B. ásper, L. Culm slender and panicle smaller; spikelets 5–9-flowered; glume linear-lanceolate, scarcely keeled, hairy near the margins, rather longer than the awn; sheaths and lower leaves hairy or downy.—N.
From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Asa Gray
Glumes 2, subtended by a small cartilaginous ring, herbaceo-membranaceous, convex, awnless in the sterile, the lower one tipped with a straight awn in the fertile spikelets.
From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Asa Gray
Long or stiff hairs on a plant; the awn; as, the beard of grain.
From Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (2nd 100 Pages) by Noah Webster
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
