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Mistletoe   /mˈɪsəltˌoʊ/   Listen
noun
Mistletoe  n.  (Written also misletoe, misseltoe, and mistleto)  (Bot.) A parasitic evergreen plant of Europe (Viscum album), bearing a glutinous fruit. When found upon the oak, where it is rare, it was an object of superstitious regard among the Druids. A bird lime is prepared from its fruit. Note: The mistletoe of the United States is Phoradendron serotinum (syn. Phoradendron flavescens), having broader leaves than the European kind. In different regions various similar plants are called by this name. The mistletoe is used as a decoration at Christmas time, and it is a tradition that two persons of the opposite sex finding each other under a mistletoe sprig should kiss.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Mistletoe" Quotes from Famous Books



... for Mithridates, King of Pontus, had plastered it all over on the outside with the said alum. Nor would I have you to compare therewith the herb which Alexander Cornelius called Eonem, and said that it had some resemblance with that oak which bears the mistletoe, and that it could neither be consumed nor receive any manner of prejudice by fire nor by water, no more than the mistletoe, of which was built, said he, the so renowned ship Argos. Search where you please for those that ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... reader, that the chorus of "derry down" is supposed to be as ancient, not only as the times of the Heptarchy, but as those of the Druids, and to have furnished the chorus to the hymns of those venerable persons when they went to the wood to gather mistletoe.] ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... Yule! all eyes are bright, And joyous songs abound; Our log burns high, but it glows less bright Than the eyes which sparkle round. The merry laugh, and the jocund tale, And the kiss 'neath the mistletoe, Make care fly as fast as the blustering gale That wreaths the new fallen snow. 'Tis Yule! 'tis Yule! all eyes are bright, And joyous thoughts abound; The log burns high, but it glows less bright Than ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... hanging up the holly And the Christmas mistletoe, Roasting chestnuts in the firelight, When you ...
— Pages for Laughing Eyes • Unknown

... does survive, in what we still commonly call Religion; while the other set, the puerile set of statements, is fairly near to extinction, and is usually called Mythology. One set has been the root of a goodly tree: the other set is being lopped off, like the parasitic mistletoe. ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang


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