conferva
Americannoun
-
confervae,
plural
-
confervas
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of conferva
1630–40; < Latin: a certain water plant supposed to heal wounds, akin to confervēre to grow together, heal ( see con-, fervent)
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.
See Examples For:
If placed in a live-box with threads of conferva, and a little decayed vegetation, it may be observed to group about among them, and shake them like a dog.
From Marvels of Pond-life A Year's Microscopic Recreations by Henry J. Slack
Our mass of conferva turns out to contain one of the most elegant species.
From Marvels of Pond-life A Year's Microscopic Recreations by Henry J. Slack
I know it is not new; but how wonderful his account of the spermatozoa of some dioecious alga or conferva, swimming and finding the minute micropyle in a distinct plant, and forcing its way in!
From More Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 2 by Sir Francis Darwin
A plant of this kind is not the less dominant because some conferva inhabiting the water or some parasitic fungus is infinitely more numerous in individuals, and more widely diffused.
From The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, 6th Edition by Charles Darwin
A clammy conferva covers everything except the mosaics upon tribune, roof, and clerestory, which defy the course of age.
From Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series by Horatio Robert Forbes Brown
Are they of the class of the ulvae, confervae, or fuci? to be welcomed as old acquaintance, or, hitherto unnoticed, to be added to the catalogue of Nature’s endless stores?
From The King's Own by Frederick Marryat
The inveterate antagonism of these black precipices to all strugglers for life is in no way more forcibly suggested than by the paucity of tufts of grass, lichens, or confervae on their outermost ledges.
From A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy
I saw them here wading about in search of food — probably for the worms which burrow in the mud; and these latter probably feed on infusoria or confervae.
From The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin
These are minute cylindrical confervae, in bundles or rafts of from twenty to sixty in each.
From The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin
"The majestic flow" of confervae remarked by Livingstone on the Tanganyika is beyond my comprehension, if that vast lake has no outlet at the north.
From Ismailia by Sir Samuel White Baker
In a few moments the boat had glided on to a carpet of confervas and other aquatic plants, starting a few kingfishers and some snow-white herons.
From Dick Sands, the Boy Captain by Ellen E. Frewer
We entered one of these caverns to gather the confervas that were spread over the clefts and humid sides of the rock.
From Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Year 1799-1804 — Volume 2 by Alexander von Humboldt
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