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
- brackened adjective
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.
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
Alternatively, you can use wool bracken and also coconut coir, but it has a few question marks against it because it's a waste material from coconut plantations, grown mostly in India and Sri Lanka.
From Salon • Sep. 11, 2022
It’s where we made forts in old tree trunks and threw bracken fern spears and swam in the cold waters of Puget Sound all summer.
From Washington Post • Jul. 27, 2021
Though uses have been found for the wool, from making rugs to being mixed with bracken to form a hardy compost, the Herdwick's real value to a farmer is its meat.
From BBC • May 15, 2021
I squat, listening behind me for bears, aster leaves rough on the tops of my legs, then bury the toilet paper under sticks and bark and dried bracken.
From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood
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.
