hart's-tongue

Or harts-tongue

[hahrts-tuhng]

noun

1. a fern, Phyllitis scolopendrium, having long, leathery, wavy-edged leaves.

hart's-tongue

noun

1. an evergreen Eurasian fern, Asplenium scolopendrium, with narrow undivided fronds bearing rows of sori: family Polypodiaceae

Word History and Origins

Origin of hart's-tongue¹

First recorded in 1275–1325, hart's-tongue is from Middle English hertis tonge. See hart, 's ¹, tongue

Example Sentences

This was a wide highway, somewhat indefinite as to its edges, which were fringed irregularly with hart's-tongue and other ferns, or clumped with low brambles bearing abundant promise of a future blackberry harvest.

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The Lieutenant's peril, Bonne's suspense, the Abbess--all were forgotten until the moon rose above the trees and flung a chequered light on the dark moss and hart's-tongue and harebells about the lovers' feet.

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The sound of running water and the brilliant green of the grass, as well as the masses of long hart's-tongue ferns falling abundantly from the churchyard wall, all tell of perpetual moisture.

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She liked to look thus into that deep dark hole, with its damp walls clothed with the long green hart's-tongue that had betrayed her.

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The banks were green with masses of beautiful hart's-tongue ferns, and all nature seemed alive and stirring and thinking of spring.

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