ferny

English

Etymology

From Middle English ferny, from Old English fearniġ, equivalent to fern +‎ -y.

Adjective

ferny (comparative fernier, superlative ferniest)

1. Of, or pertaining to ferns. (The addition of quotations indicative of this usage is being sought:)
2. Resembling or characteristic of a fern, in appearance, smell, etc.
   • 1942, Emily Carr, “Time”, in The Book of Small, Toronto, Ont.: Oxford University Press, →OCLC:

     All kinds of mosses grew by the stream—tufty, flat, ferny, and curly, green, yellow and a whitish kind that was tipped with scarlet sealing wax.

   • 1954, William Golding, “Chapter One”, in Lord of the Flies:

     Ralph had stopped smiling and was pointing into the lagoon. Something creamy lay among the ferny weeds.

3. Covered in or filled with ferns; flanked or surrounded by ferns.
   • 1922, Katherine Mansfield, “At the Bay”, in The Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield, Penguin, published 2007:

     And from the bush there came the sound of little streams flowing, quickly, lightly, slipping between the smooth stones, gushing into ferny basins and out again; and there was the splashing of big drops on large leaves […]

   • 1928, Virginia Woolf, chapter 1, in Orlando: A Biography, London: The Hogarth Press, →OCLC; republished as Orlando: A Biography (eBook no. 0200331h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, July 2015:

     He skirted all stables, kennels, breweries, carpenters' shops, washhouses, places where they make tallow candles, kill oxen, forge horse-shoes, stitch jerkins—for the house was a town ringing with men at work at their various crafts—and gained the ferny path leading uphill through the park unseen.

   • 1939, Lucy Maud Montgomery, chapter 1, in Anne of Ingleside‎^[1]:

     We'll walk over the spring fields and through those ferny old woods.

Derived terms

• fernily

Translations

of or pertaining to ferns

• Italian: felceto
• Welsh: rhedynaidd
• Yola: vearnee

Middle English

Alternative forms

• fferny

Etymology

fern +‎ -y

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈfɛrniː/, /ˈfɛːrniː/

Adjective

ferny

1. (rare) Full of fern or bracken.

Descendants

• English: ferny
• Yola: vearnee, fearnee

References

• “fē̆rnī, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.