peacock's tail

noun

1. a handsome brown seaweed, Padina pavonia (though coloured yellow-olive, red, and green) whose fan-shaped fronds have concentric bands of iridescent hairs

Example Sentences

In 1860 Charles Darwin wrote, “The sight of a feather in a peacock’s tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick!”

Read more on National Geographic

Sometimes, they’re decorations to attract a female’s eye, like a peacock’s tail feathers or the vibrant colors on a lizard’s belly.

Read more on New York Times

In the gallery devoted to E-1027, make sure to select the white dining room serving table, so you can see its four pivoting drawers fanned out like a peacock’s tail.

Read more on New York Times

Its interior contains some of the finest tilework to be found anywhere in the world, especially the dome with its unfathomably complex geometric patterns, said to resemble a peacock’s tail – testament to untold millions of hours of care and labour.

Read more on The Guardian

It is not the equivalent of the extravagant peacock's tail, which makes males more attractive to females and increases the chances of passing genes on to the next generation.

Read more on BBC