conferva
Americannoun
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.
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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 Brown, Horatio Robert Forbes
But if the conferva or parasitic fungus exceeds its allies in the above respects, it will then be dominant within its own class.
From The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, 6th Edition by Darwin, Charles
Presently he took to crawling, or rather running, over a thread of conferva, and then his back was elegantly arched, and his cilia stood erect like the quills of a porcupine.
From Marvels of Pond-life A Year's Microscopic Recreations by Slack, Henry J.
Fresh-water shells have been found in the thermal waters of Gastein at a temperature of 117°, and Niebuhr found a conferva growing in water at 142°.
From Curiosities of Medical Experience by Millingen, J. G. (John Gideon)
Microscopic animals produced from all vegetable and animal infusions; generate others like themselves by solitary reproduction; not produced from eggs; conferva fontinalis; mucor.
From The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society A Poem, with Philosophical Notes by Darwin, Erasmus
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 Hardy, Thomas
We found it covered with green confervae; a double border of pistia and broad-leaved reed grasses, six to seven feet high, enclosing it all round.
From The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes by Craig, Austin
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 Darwin, Charles
In almost every long voyage some account is given of these confervae.
From The Voyage of the Beagle by Darwin, Charles
"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 Baker, Samuel White, Sir
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 Frewer, Ellen E.
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 Humboldt, Alexander von
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.
