bracken
Americannoun
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a large fern or brake, especially Pteridium aquilinum.
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a cluster or thicket of such ferns; an area overgrown with ferns and shrubs.
noun
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Also called: brake. any of various large coarse ferns, esp Pteridium aquilinum , having large fronds with spore cases along the undersides and extensive underground stems
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a clump of any of these ferns
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of bracken
1275–1325; Middle English braken < Scandinavian; compare Swedish bräken fern, Norwegian brake juniper
Explanation
Bracken is a weedy type of fern that's native to the Southern Hemisphere. If you visit Australia, you'll almost certainly see some bracken, which grows in every state of the country. While bracken, also known as the bracken fern, originally comes from New Zealand and Australia, it can be found all around the world today. In fact, bracken is considered an invasive species in most countries, leaving only deserts and extremely cold regions unaffected by its spread. Bracken is coarse and weedy, and while its roots are commonly eaten by Maori in New Zealand, the leaves have been found to cause cancer.
Vocabulary lists containing bracken
The Hobbit
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Tolkien Reading Day, List 6
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"Birches" by Robert Frost
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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.
Already green shoots of bracken are bursting through the blackened earth and that will crowd out the traditional heather, bilberry and cowberry.
From BBC ● Sep. 14, 2026
The insect was last seen in the New Forest in the 1990s and specialist listening equipment was used to locate the insect in France and its eggs which were hidden inside the stems of bracken.
From BBC ● Jul. 9, 2026
Only decades ago many of the cottages in Scotland’s Highlands were roofed in heather, bracken and marram grass.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 14, 2025
It has since fallen or been cut down and now lies among the bracken.
From BBC ● May 11, 2024
He parted the bracken, and there was the griffin, which huddled, shaking, in the greenery.
From "Impossible Creatures" by Katherine Rundell
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.
