Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of mossy
Explanation
Anything covered with or resembling moss is mossy. A mossy rock can be pretty. Mossy teeth are never pretty. Moss tends to grow in a green carpet, especially in wooded or shady areas, so when you're walking through a forest you'll probably come upon mossy areas. Informally, you can also use this adjective to mean "old fashioned" or "dated." Your grandparents' conservative ideas about dating, for example, might be a little mossy. The word stems from an Old English root, meos, that's a close relation to mos, or "bog."
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:
The task was challenging - not only are the frogs tiny, they are extremely well camouflaged to blend into their mossy homes.
From BBC ● Feb. 2, 2025
Further testing revealed that the rearrangement is tightly correlated with the functionality of the mossy fiber synapse.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 20, 2024
The exact molecular details of how signal processing in the mossy fiber synapses works are still unknown.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 20, 2024
The style is evocative and creepy, thanks to rich production and costume design, the cramped house seemingly lost in time, surrounded by a damp, mossy forest.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 20, 2024
She moved carefully away from the cliff’s edge, feeling her way in the dark to a mossy patch beside some bushes.
From "Son" by Lois Lowry
The new cottages are finely designed, but they are too black-and-white and painty to group easily with the older, mossier buildings and the White Hart Inn, with its nobly ugly sign.
From Highways and Byways in Surrey by Thomson, Hugh
After that the most Jabez asked of Eddie was to write "Please remit" or "Past due" on the mossier bills.
From In a Little Town by Hughes, Rupert
Ah," he said, "I have done fifty, without food, over the roughest and mossiest mountains.
From The Moon Endureth: Tales and Fancies by Buchan, John
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.
