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Moss   Listen
noun
Moss  n.  
1.
(Bot.) A cryptogamous plant of a cellular structure, with distinct stem and simple leaves. The fruit is a small capsule usually opening by an apical lid, and so discharging the spores. There are many species, collectively termed Musci, growing on the earth, on rocks, and trunks of trees, etc., and a few in running water. Note: The term moss is also popularly applied to many other small cryptogamic plants, particularly lichens, species of which are called tree moss, rock moss, coral moss, etc. Fir moss and club moss are of the genus Lycopodium. See Club moss, under Club, and Lycopodium.
2.
A bog; a morass; a place containing peat; as, the mosses of the Scottish border. Note: Moss is used with participles in the composition of words which need no special explanation; as, moss-capped, moss-clad, moss-covered, moss-grown, etc.
Black moss. See under Black, and Tillandsia.
Bog moss. See Sphagnum.
Feather moss, any moss branched in a feathery manner, esp. several species of the genus Hypnum.
Florida moss, Long moss, or Spanish moss. See Tillandsia.
Iceland moss, a lichen. See Iceland Moss.
Irish moss, a seaweed. See Carrageen.
Moss agate (Min.), a variety of agate, containing brown, black, or green mosslike or dendritic markings, due in part to oxide of manganese. Called also Mocha stone.
Moss animal (Zool.), a bryozoan.
Moss berry (Bot.), the small cranberry (Vaccinium Oxycoccus).
Moss campion (Bot.), a kind of mosslike catchfly (Silene acaulis), with mostly purplish flowers, found on the highest mountains of Europe and America, and within the Arctic circle.
Moss land, land produced accumulation of aquatic plants, forming peat bogs of more or less consistency, as the water is grained off or retained in its pores.
Moss pink (Bot.), a plant of the genus Phlox (Phlox subulata), growing in patches on dry rocky hills in the Middle United States, and often cultivated for its handsome flowers.
Moss rose (Bot.), a variety of rose having a mosslike growth on the stalk and calyx. It is said to be derived from the Provence rose.
Moss rush (Bot.), a rush of the genus Juncus (Juncus squarrosus).
Scale moss. See Hepatica.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Moss" Quotes from Famous Books



... fixed upon the ground, and in whom some passion or struggle was raging. For as she sat looking down, she held a corner of her under lip within her mouth, her bosom heaved, her nostril quivered, her head trembled, indignant tears were on her cheek, and her foot was set upon the moss as though she would have crushed it into nothing. And yet almost the self-same glance that showed him this, showed him the self-same lady rising with a scornful air of weariness and lassitude, and turning away with nothing expressed ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... said he, leading his daughter and the young man into the garden; they all sat down on the moss-eaten seat in the summer-house. ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... perched on the top of a fountain, spouting water in a silvery arc. Through a shaded avenue could be seen other secluded spots with marble benches in front of other fountains. In another direction was a grotto where water trickled down gray, moss-covered stones. Far in the distance were cypress trees waving their spear-like tops and standing guard over the coolness and ...
— The 1926 Tatler • Various

... so. For the quick and active Uncas soon found the impression of a foot on a bunch of moss, where it would seem an Indian had inadvertently trodden. Pursuing the direction given by this discovery, he entered the neighboring thicket, and struck the trail, as fresh and obvious as it had been before they ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper

... sea-thistles. Here they are, in thick bunches, fine and hairy, in faint, fair shades of green. And what can this be that looks so much like a sponge? Ah, it is a tuft of moss with green spires shooting up in ...
— Lord Dolphin • Harriet A. Cheever

... in profile, who was always going to fry two fish. What Barmecide justice have I done to the noble feasts wherein the set of wooden platters figured, each with its own peculiar delicacy, as a ham or turkey, glued tight on to it, and garnished with something green, which I recollect as moss! Could all the Temperance Societies of these later days, united, give me such a tea-drinking as I have had through the means of yonder little set of blue crockery, which really would hold liquid (it ran out of the small wooden cask, I recollect, and tasted of matches), and which made tea, nectar. ...
— Some Christmas Stories • Charles Dickens

... sure," answered Harry, "you have no suspicion of what a beautiful picture you all make." And a beautiful picture it was: the great rocky cliff in the background, tricked out in its new spring green of moss and shrub and tree; the grassy plot at its foot where a little stream gurgled out from the rock; the blazing camp-fire with the little group about it; and in front the sunlit river. How happy they all were! And how ready to please and to be pleased. Even little Mr. Sims had ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor

... and joined him. They had reached the summit of the hill before either of them broke silence, and then Oriana mechanically made some commonplace remark about the beauty of the western sky. He replied with a monosyllable, and sat down upon a moss-covered rock. She plucked a few ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood

... beckoned me, stepped into the moss, and crawled without a sound straight through the ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

... the crest of the mountains enclosing the valley in which we were camped, and was working slowly down the rim of a deep ravine. In my soft leather moccasins I could walk over the springy moss without a sound, and suddenly saw a yellow-red form moving about in a luxurious growth of grass and tinted leaves. My heart missed a beat, for I thought it was ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews

... of moss-grown trees, and Tom sat down, with his rifle across his knees. He was thinking of many things, but chiefly of what yet lay before them—the discovery of the red dwarfs and the ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton

... ye give such shall you have," answered the moss-trooper, first pointing with his lance towards the burned village, and then almost instantly levelling it against Lord Lacy. The squire drew his sword, and severed at one blow the steel head from ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... Islands, found himself on a small island of the latter group, caught in a storm of wind and hail, which had come on suddenly. It was in vain to look about for any shelter; for not only did the storm entirely obscure the landscape, but there was nothing around him save a desert moss. ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald

... With blackest moss the flower-plots Were thickly crusted, one and all; The rusted nails fell from the knots That held the peach to the garden wall. The broken sheds look'd sad and strange— Uplifted was the clinking latch, Weeded and worn the ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... not taken refuge in one of these pretty bird's-nests embedded in moss and foliage, their half-open blinds overlooking the limpid flow of the Seine? Come quickly, my dear fellow; I will not take advantage of your position as I did of Alfred's, to overwhelm you from my moucharaby with a shower ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin

... shaded by large trees which appeared to have been the accumulating growth of many centuries. The carriage soon stopped in front of a low villa, and this too was imbedded in magnificent trees covered with moss. Mr. Green alighted and was shown into a superb drawing room, the walls of which were hung with fine specimens from the hands of the great Italian painters, and one by a German artist representing a beautiful monkish legend connected with "The Holy Catherine," and illustrious lady ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown

... in a moss-grown summer-house at the end of the garden, where she ventured to sit down to put on her stout leather shoes. The children's toys, a ball and a set of ninepins lay on the floor! How many ages ago was it that she had made that sarcastic reply ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... sweeties, but berries strung on long stems of grass, acorns, and pretty cones, bits of rock shining with mica, several bluebirds' feathers, and a nest of moss with white ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... the stillness that lay on the emerant lea, Or the mist that sleeps on a waveless sea. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Such beauty bard may never declare, For there was no pride nor passion there; . . . . . . . . . . . . . Her seymar was the lily flower, And her cheek the moss-rose in the shower; And her voice like the distant melodye That floats along the ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... carefully protected by domes which screwed on to the cylinder. The latter were introduced into the holes, tops flush with the trench bottom, and covered by a board on which reposed the "Salzdecke," a kind of long bag stuffed with some such material as peat moss and soaked in potash solution to absorb any slight gas leakages. Three layers of sandbags were built above the salzdecke to protect the cylinder from shell fragments and to form a firestep for the infantry. ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden

... describes a curvilinear path as he reels homeward from his revels, and waits at his bed-side to catch hold of a post as it "comes round again." Those German principalities which are represented in the Diet, are denominated circles; and if a man is so ignorant as not to know that the moss always grows on the north side of a tree, and consequently gets lost in the woods, he invariably makes the discovery by finding that he has been unconsciously traversing a circle. Indeed, with most of our race the journey of human life would be circular, were it not that it has both ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone

... to make to an old tree with moss on his branches," said the oak. "I am beginning to regret that I was so kind to you. If you have a scrap of honour in your composition, just have the goodness to move your leaves a little to one side. Last year, there were hardly ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald

... station, ready for the journey West,—I could hardly believe that it was not yet ten o'clock in the morning. GARRY MOSS. ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various

... selected a proper spot to reproduce in the Museum, and Yvette took a series of natural color photographs to guide the artist in painting the background. Next she made detail photographs of the surroundings. Then we collected portions of the rocks and typical bits of vegetation such as moss and leaves, to be either dried or preserved in formalin. In a large group, perhaps several thousand leaves will be required, but the field naturalist need select typical specimens of only five or six different sizes from each of which a plaster mold can ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews

... to sit down on the moss by her side and only touch her hand. The woman looked about her with dreamy eyes; she could see the fields from the edge of the Przykop. It was pitch-dark in the hollow; he would have liked to go down there with her, but she refused; she wanted ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig

... spies, but he had only a few hundreds to meet the thousands of Scots. But, if Norfolk's invasion was an empty parade, the Scots attempt was a fearful rout. Under their incompetent leader, Oliver Sinclair, they got entangled in Solway Moss; enormous numbers were slain or taken prisoners, and among them were some of the greatest men in Scotland. James died broken-hearted at the news, leaving his kingdom to the week-old infant, Mary, Queen ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... looked terribly ferocious. On the grass beside him lay a huge club, thickly studded at one end with great iron knobs; but Davy noticed, to his great relief, that some little creeping vines were twining themselves among these knobs, and that moss was growing thickly upon one side of the club itself, as though it had been lying there untouched for ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl

... course had always been upward. The vegetation gradually grew less and less, the tree diminishing to the bush, and finally disappearing altogether, while the grasses became coarse and wiry, or were entirely superseded by moss. We went through a hamlet or two, composed of stones stained apparently with iron ore, and, as the huts were covered with the same material, instead of lending the landscape a more humanized air, they rather added to its appearance of sterile dreariness. ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper

... tired. I thought I would take a hand in making camp and getting supper. We had a beautiful camping-place, its only drawback being the distance from the water supply, for we were now 200 feet above the river, and some distance back from it. The ground was dry and moss covered, and the scattered spruce supplied the carpets for the tents which were soon ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)

... sweet peace in depths of autumn woods, Where grow the ragged ferns and roughened moss; The naked, silent trees have taught me this,— The loss of beauty is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various

... same as the alpine strawberry, which is said to grow in the mountains of Greece, and thence northward. This was probably the first variety cultivated, though our native species would seem as unpromising a subject for the garden as club-moss or wintergreens. ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... off to sawmill with the oxen for boards and shingles. Then, shortly, we had a roof over us, and floors to walk on, and that luxury D'ri called a "pyaz," although it was not more than a mere shelf with a roof over it. We chinked the logs with moss and clay at first, putting up greased paper in the window spaces. For months we knew not the luxury ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller

... And beyond, through the foliage of the willows and the low apple trees which Jonah Winch had set out, Coniston Water gleamed and tumbled. Under an arching elm near the house was the well, stone-rimmed, with its long pole and crotch, and bucket all green with the damp moss which clung ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... beauteous, Nature, is thy face,' Exclaim'd Orlando: 'all that grows has grace: All are appropriate—bog, and marsh, and fen, Are only poor to undiscerning men; Here may the nice and curious eye explore How Nature's hand adorns the rushy moor, Here the rare moss in secret shade is found, Here the sweet myrtle of the shaking ground; Beauties are these that from the view retire, But well repay th' attention they require; For these my Laura will her home forsake, And all the pleasures ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger

... absorbed was she in her sudden Quixotic project. Yet, as she groped among the brown leaves at the foot of her tree, her fingers came in contact with something wholly different from chestnuts or their thorny burrs. It was hard as a stone, yet it wasn't a stone. It was half-buried in the leaf-mold and moss, though the rain of the previous night had washed it free ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond

... life worth living is taken from him? How is he to sustain himself? where shall he look for his strength or his hope? He looks up at the sky full of stars, but he is told that God is not there, that the city of God is long since a ruin, and that owls hoot to each other across its moss-grown fanes and battlements; he looks down on the earth, full of graves, a vast necropolis of once radiant dreams, with the living for its phantoms,—and there is no comfort anywhere. Happy is he ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne

... sake, bring all that rubbish into the sitting-room!" She had her hands full of moss and flowers. "Please take it out on the piazza. John will carry you some chairs." And Jane was positively too much astonished to say a single word, but turned and walked out the way she came in, driving her dutiful escort ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner

... ravines, to the Sierra of Urbasa, where it was buried. Soldiers are very ingenious in inventing appropriate names; and as soon as the Carlist volunteers saw this unwieldy old-fashioned piece of ordnance, full of moss and sand, and covered with rust, they christened it the Abuelo, or the Grandfather, by which appellation it was ever afterwards known. The only artillery officer at that time with Zumalacarregui was Don Tomas Reina, who now, in conjunction with one Balda, a professor of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various

... to stroll through the under-wood and gather the slender blue and white harebells that came peeping out of the green moss, or hunted for the waxy blossoms of the bell-heather; how lovely the place had looked then, with the rowans or witchens, as they called them—the mountain ash of the south, drooping over the water, laden heavily with clusters of coral-like ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... system of successful transplanting ever undertaken in the history of the world. The South Gardens adjoin the Avenue of Palms and extend to the Exposition enclosure along the south boundary line, where a wall fifty feet high and ten feet wide has been erected of a solid green moss-like growth, studded with myriads of tiny pink star-like blossoms. This great wall is perforated by simple arched masonry entrances, leading rough the richly planted foreground formed ...
— The Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition • Louis Christian Mullgardt

... Stevenson; and much good profit had he of the adventure. For it was his common practice to go to bed with the birds and rise with the sun; and more often than not he lodged in the inn of the silver moon, with moss for a couch, leafy boughs for a canopy and the stars for night-lights—accommodations infinitely more agreeable than those afforded by the grubby and malodorous auberge of the wayside average. And between sun and sun he punished his ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

... sunshine that makes it warm, for you remember I told you it was as dark as night. There is no furnace in the cellar; indeed, there is no cellar, neither is there a stove. But all this heat comes from a sort of lamp, with long wicks of moss and plenty of walrus fat to burn. It warms the small house, which has but one room, and over it the mother hangs a shallow dish in which she cooks soup; but most of the meat is eaten raw, cut into long strips, and eaten much as one might ...
— The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball - That Floats in the Air • Jane Andrews

... noble stag was pausing now Upon the mountain's southern brow, Where broad extended, far beneath, The varied realms of fair Menteith. With anxious eye he wandered o'er Mountain and meadow, moss and moor, And pondered refuge from his toil, By far Lochard or Aberfoyle. But nearer was the copsewood gray That waved and wept on Loch Achray, And mingled with the pine-trees blue On the bold cliffs of Benvenue. Fresh vigor with the hope returned, With flying foot ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... there is hardly room for it—the houses cling to the hillside like swallows' nests—here and there patches of fresh green grass gleam among the rocks, and, high up in the air on some dizzy ledge, there is a wild apple-tree in blossom—it is all black rocks and springs and moss and ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne

... the secretarial and clerical work involved has been the work of women and mostly of women of the leisured classes, many of them without any previous training. From the organization of the big schemes of supply down to such work as the collecting of sphagnum moss, everything that was needed has been done, ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser

... Moss! Heaven forbid that any man should be shot for me. No, not for all the pheasants in the world. I'll try and think of some other way. I should like to see ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... yet sweet; the scent of dying leaves, and fading flowers loth to perish, of rose-berries that had usurped the place of roses, of chrysanthemums chilled by frost, of moist earth deprived of sun, and of the green moss-like film overgrowing all the trunks of the old beech trees. The novice was saying goodbye to the convent garden, and the long straight path under the wall, where every day for many years she had walked, spring and summer, autumn and winter; days of rain, days of sun, days of boisterous wind, ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... other stories of the same kind, equally harrowing, and unfortunately not ending so well, but I have not been able to verify them. The one mentioned here I owe to the late Sir Charles Moss, Chief Justice ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various

... be disappointed," Birger told her. "Erik says that his father's reindeer may wander away any day to find a place where there is more moss, and if they do, the ...
— Gerda in Sweden • Etta Blaisdell McDonald

... you dare to do such a thing?" exclaimed Mrs. Moss, hugging the small heroine with ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various

... the lady home, for those who are wandering about of that owl-squadron will doubtless hide themselves from the eye of day." While speaking, he had skilfully and carefully arranged a couch of twigs and moss for Hildegardis, and when the wearied one, after uttering some gentle words of gratitude, had sunk into a slumber, he began, as well as the darkness would allow, to bind up the wounds of his friend. During this anxious task, while the dark boughs of the trees murmured over ...
— Aslauga's Knight • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... set the foreground of the copse with its glimpses of ruddy heather and the long sweep of the heights beyond, which stretched away into the infinite. That at least could not be surpassed anywhere; and the Persian carpet was like moss under foot, and the chairs luxurious—and there was a collection of old china in some open shelves which would have made the mouth of an amateur water. Well! it was Lady Mariamne's own loss if she preferred ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant

... not far distant, to the left of their path, from which there was a very fine view that he wished to show his companion. And he led Marian thither by a little moss-bordered, ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... Comitan, the road passes over a curious lime deposit, apparently formed by ancient hot waters; it is a porous tufa which gave back a hollow sound under the hoofs of our horses. It contains moss, leaves, and branches, crusted with lime, and often forms basin terraces, which, while beautiful to see, were peculiarly harsh and rough for our animals. But the hard, and far more ancient, limestone, onto which we then passed, was ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr

... chanced upon six little roughly dressed lads laying out in the sand an elaborate little park, quite nine by twelve feet. They must have been at it hours, for there were ponds, bridges, tiny hills and ravines and much planting in moss and other little greens. So intent on their task were they that we stood watching full two minutes before our presence attracted their attention, and yet the oldest of the group must have been ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King

... moss trooper," said the smith. "That fellow will fight or flee as suits his humor, and there is no use to pursue him, any more than to hunt a wild goose. He has got your purse, I doubt me, for they seldom leave off till they are ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... striped black and white like the coat of a civet cat; ghostly basswood, shining white on dead white; woods of clouded grain, and woods of shining grain, grain that showed like the slanting, splintered lines of hewn stone, like moss, like the veins of flowers, the fringes of birds' feathers, the striping and dappling of beasts; woods of exquisite grain where the life of the tree drew its own image in its own heart; woods whose surface was tender to the touch ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair

... ideas of revolution were widely in the air. The people were rising against the tyranny of the kings. First in this struggle for liberty came the English colonies in America. Then the people of France sprang to arms and overthrew the moss-grown tyranny of feudal times. The armies of Napoleon spread the demand for freedom through Europe. In Spain the people began to fight for their freedom, and soon the thirst for liberty crossed the ocean to America, where the people of the ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris

... Ben could not help waving the letter over his head as he ran in to tell Mrs. Moss the glad news, and begin at once to plan the welcome they would give Miss Celia, for he never called her ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various

... "scale tree," was a gigantic club moss fifty and seventy-five feet high, spreading toward the top into stout branches, at whose ends were borne cone-shaped spore cases. The younger parts of the tree were clothed with stiff needle-shaped leaves, but elsewhere the trunk and branches were marked ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton

... this world... all loving each other equally with a divine love... where crystal fountains of perfumed waters play in basins of silver... where blue roses bloom in vases of alabaster... where the perspectives are all enchanted... where they walk with naked feet upon the thick green moss, soft as carpets of velvet... where all sing as they wander among the fragrant ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt

... kinds of turtles or sea-tortoises, as the Trunk, Loggerhead, Hawksbill, and Green turtles. The first is larger than the rest, and has a rounder and higher back shell, but is neither so wholesome nor so well tasted; and the same may be said of the Loggerhead, which feeds on moss from the rocks, and has its name from its large head. The Hawksbill, so named from having a long small mouth, like the beak of a hawk, is the smallest species, and is that which produces the so-much-admired tortoise-shell, of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... is fleeting as the hours. The town of Thebes is draped with moss, And Ilium's well-known topless towers Are now ...
— Something Else Again • Franklin P. Adams

... a few relics. "To go round by Robin Hood's barn" is to travel in a roundabout fashion, and "to sell Robin Hood's pennyworths", to sell much below value, as a generous robber might. His "feather" is the Traveller's Joy, his "hatband" the club-moss. His "men" or his "sheep" are the bracken, and his "wind" a wind that brings on a thaw. We are told that Robin could stand anything but a "tho wind". The Red Campion, the Ragged Robin, and the Herb Robert are known in several counties by his name. His greatest claim to popularity ...
— The Dukeries • R. Murray Gilchrist

... such professors are not Christians. Let fanatical Christians commit excesses which admit not of open justification, and the apologist of Christianity coolly assures us such conduct is mere rust on the body of his religion—moss which grows on the stock of ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell

... a sub-variety of the Staghorn Endive, and comparatively of recent introduction. It is a unique sort, exceedingly well curled; and, when the variety is genuine and the plant well developed, has an appearance not unlike a tuft of moss. ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr

... it, he grasped her and fairly swung her across a gulley; and again, as she gathered herself to jump, his powerful arm slipped around her body and he lowered her to the moss below, leaving her with red cheeks and a rapid heart to climb the ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers

... an old bridge leading over it to that inviting shade, and as it was now nearly six and the sun was gathering strength, I went, with slumber overpowering me and my feet turning heavy beneath me, along the tow-path, over the bridge, and lay down on the moss under these delightful trees. Forgetful of the penalty that such an early repose would bring, and of the great heat that was to follow at midday, I quickly became part of the life of ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... And laid on the Sheriff's men And drived them down bydene. ROBIN started to that Knight, And cut a two his bond; And took him in his hand a bow, And bade him by him stand. "Leave thy horse thee behind, And learn for to run! Thou shalt with me to green wood Through mire, moss, and fen! Thou shalt with me to green wood Without any leasing, Till that I have got us grace Of EDWARD, our ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various

... d'Enghien, a virulent pamphlet that the royalists passed from hand to hand, and of which he had taken a copy. How many times must d'Ache have paced the magnificent avenue of limes, which still exists as the only vestige of the old park. There is a moss-grown stone table on which one loves to fancy this strange man leaning his elbow while he thought of his "rival," and planned the future according to his royalist illusions as the other in his Olympia, the Tuileries, planned it according to ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre

... water very effectually, and draws it off on the siphon principle. It can be obtained at 85 West Street, New York, for one dollar and a half. Water may be partially filtered in a muddy pond by taking a barrel and boring the lower half full of holes, then filling it up with grass or moss above the upper holes, after which it is placed in the pond with the top above the surface. The water filters through the grass or moss, and rises in the barrel to a level with the pond. Travelers frequently drink muddy water ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy

... of feet high, towering over us. The forest stood about us on all sides, coming down to the river's brim on the opposite bank and meeting it not far from us on the near bank. The precipice, covered with moss and ...
— The Chamber of Life • Green Peyton Wertenbaker

... whole row was a luxuriant hawthorne hedge, and belonging to each cottage was a little square of garden ground. The gardens were chock-full of familiar, bright-coloured flowers. The cottagers evidently loved their little nests, and kindly nature helped their humble efforts with its flowers, moss, and lichens. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... Canon Mills, and Silver Mills; nor Redford Burn of pleasant memories; nor yet, for all its smallness, that nameless trickle that springs in the green bosom of Allermuir, and is fed from Halkerside with a perennial teacupful, and threads the moss under the Shearer's Knowe, and makes one pool there, overhung by a rock, where I loved to sit and make bad verses, and is then kidnapped in its infancy by subterranean pipes for the service of the sea-beholding city in the plain. From many points in the moss you may ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson

... caressing,—it laps the greater part of this wreck with protecting waves, covers with sea-weeds all that it can reach, and protects with incrusting shells. Even beyond its grasp it tosses soft pendants of moss that twine like vine-tendrils, or sway in the wind. It mellows harsh colors into beauty, and Ruskin grows eloquent over the wave-washed tint of some tarry, weather-beaten boat. But air is pitiless: it dries and stiffens all outline, and bleaches all color away, so that you can hardly tell ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... load of little more than a hundred pounds, and cannot travel above three or four leagues in a day. But all this is compensated by the little care and cost required for its management and its maintenance. It picks up an easy subsistence from the moss and stunted herbage that grow scantily along the withered sides and the steeps of the Cordilleras. The structure of its stomach, like that of the camel, is such as to enable it to dispense with any supply of water for ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... and rude workmanship. The walls were decorated with several coloured prints, illustrative of the Pilgrim's Progress and hung in small red frames of about six inches square. The fire-place was filled with moss, and its mantel-shelf had its china sheep and sheperdesses, and a small looking-glass, the whole being surmounted by a gun hung transversely. The Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments worked in worsted, were suspended in a wooden ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... some humble Villager hard by, That knew no other pleasure than to love, To feed thy little Herd, to tune a Pipe, To which the Nymphs should listen all the Day; We'd taste the Waters of these Crystal Springs, With more delight than all delicious Wines; And being weary, on a Bed of Moss, Having no other Canopy but Trees, We'd lay us down, and ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn

... to know that sister of yours that is so good at discovering; sure she is excellent company; she has reason to laugh at you when you would have persuaded her the "moss was sweet." I remember Jane brought some of it to me, to ask me if I thought it had no ill smell, and whether she might venture to put it in the box or not. I told her as I thought, she could not put a more innocent thing there, for I did not find it had any ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry

... continuous toil, it was to indulge in some quiet and simple diversion, social converse with ladies in houses at which he chanced to stop, caresses bestowed upon children, with whom he was a great favorite, and frequently in informal conversation with his officers. At "Hayfield" and "Moss Neck," two hospitable houses below Fredericksburg, he at this time often stopped and spent some time in the society of the ladies and children there. One of the latter, a little curly-headed girl, would come up to him always to receive her accustomed kiss, and one day confided ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke

... remembered Stack Island; also Lake Providence, Louisiana—which is the first distinctly Southern-looking town you come to, downward-bound; lies level and low, shade-trees hung with venerable gray beards of Spanish moss; 'restful, pensive, Sunday aspect about the place,' comments Uncle Mumford, with feeling—also ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... we found had almost reached their allotted span—crusty old fellows indeed and scarred in many a battle; "moss-heads" we called them, and the term was well applied, for their hoary old heads gave the idea of their being covered ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson

... eye could look, south, or west, or northwest, there was nothing to be seen but a vast howling wilderness, with neither tree nor river, nor any green thing. The surface we found, as the part we passed the day before, had a kind of thick moss upon it, of a blackish dead colour, but nothing in it that looked like food, either for ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe

... the port and its neighbourhood. The sun was growing strong. The rocks were emerging by degrees from their winter clothing of snow; moss of a wine-like colour was springing up on the basalt cliffs, strips of seaweed fifty yards long were floating on the sea, and on the plain the lyella, which is of Andean origin, was pushing up its little points, and the only leguminous plant of the region, that gigantic ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne

... ivy-covered church tower (which was all that was to remain of the original structure). The long steep roof of this picturesque dwelling sloped nearly down to the ground, the old tiles that covered it being overgrown with rich olive-hued moss. New red tiles in twos and threes had been used for patching the holes wrought by decay, lighting up the whole harmonious surface with dots of ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy

... threadbare; worn, worn to a thread, worn to a shadow, worn to the stump, worn to rags; reduced, reduced to a skeleton; far gone; tacky [U.S.]. decayed &c v.; moth-eaten, worm-eaten; mildewed, rusty, moldy, spotted, seedy, time-worn, moss-grown; discolored; effete, wasted, crumbling, moldering, rotten, cankered, blighted, tainted; depraved &c (vicious) 945; decrepid^, decrepit; broke, busted, broken, out of commission, hors de combat [Fr.], out of action, broken down; done, done for, done ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... cottonwood, and the ash, with a charming intermixture of that beautiful parasitic evergreen, the mistletoe, above Vicksburg, suggest the blooming grandeur of the stream. Below, the appearance of a new parasite, the Spanish moss, draping the trees with a cold, hoary-looking vegetation, casts a melancholy and matured dignity upon the scene. Like the gray locks of age, it reminds the passer by of centuries gone, when the red savage ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... the trees it was gross darkness. Above them the wet branches, moved by the wind which still blew strongly, clashed together with a harsh and mournful sound, showering them with heavy raindrops. Their feet sank deeply in cushions of soaked moss ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... hours I'm as hard as nails, but when I shut up my desk I'm just as good a fellow as the next one. All work and no play gathers no moss," ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball

... forming a hollow stem. In general, the agreeable fumes of the "Aina" were created by one's own inhalations; but Donjalolo deeming the solace too dearly purchased by any exertion of the royal lungs, regaled himself through those of his attendants, whose lips were as moss-rose buds after ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville

... empty vessels, piles of turf, heaps of grains, tubs of wash, and kegs of whiskey, were lying about in all directions, together with pots, pans, wooden trenchers, and dishes, for culinary uses. The seats were round stones and black bosses which were made of a light hard moss found in the mountains and bogs, and frequently used as seats in rustic chimney corners. On entering, your nose was assailed by such a mingled stench of warm grains, sour barm, putrid potato skins, and strong whiskey, ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... arable land: 0% permanent crops: 0% permanent pastures: 0% forests and woodland: 0% other: 100% (largely covered by permanent ice and snow with some sparse vegetation consisting of grass, moss, and lichen) ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... who declare that women who are witty and accomplished, generally make bad housewives. They are said to lie on sofas all day through, reading hooks they cannot understand; playing all kinds of tortuous music; and painting moss roses upon velvet. I am not an old married man (twenty days old only), but I am ready to wager, from what I have already seen of my Carrie, that there is not the slightest ground for those charges against clever women; on the contrary, it seems ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold

... less is known, only sixty-seven species having been recorded. The most noteworthy are Calicium melanophaeum, found on fir-trees in Bricket Wood; Peltigera polydactyla, on moss-covered ground in Oxhey Woods, Watford; Lecanora phlogina, in the Tunnel Woods, Watford; and Pertusaria globulifera, on trees in the same woods and also in Bricket Wood. As woods in the vicinity ...
— Hertfordshire • Herbert W Tompkins

... says Ronayne; and to the orchard they go. Here, finding a rustic seat at the foot of a gnarled and moss-grown apple-tree, ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... a sort of rude chimney constructed of upright planks stuffed between with moss; but the danger of the fire is great; indeed it is always a necessary to have buckets of water at hand ready to throw upon the flames. In some places the chimneys were fortified against this danger by being lined all the way up with a coating ...
— Georgie's Present • Miss Brightwell

... that Spanish island, moss-grown and bowery, in a secluded spot which nature seemed to have set aside for secret counsels, the mutinous crew perfected their plans, and signed a round-robin compact which pledged all present to the perilous enterprise. ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... bodies, seamed with time, knobs like human muscles jutted; between the broken bark the red blood showed. From their angry hands, clutching at the air or doubled in imprecation, long strands of gray-green moss hung, waving and coiling, in the night wind. Only one old man was on his hands and knees as if to crawl from the field; but a comrade spurned him with his foot and wound his bony hand about the coward's neck. Another had turned his head to the enemy, pointing his index finger in scorn, although ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton

... in such numbers that, much in opposition to his wishes, his brother, with whom he then lived, was obliged to give general orders that none of them should be admitted to him. He was ever ready to oblige. Moss. Olivet relates of Huet, the bishop of Avranches, that he was so absorbed in his studies as sometimes to neglect his pastoral duties; that once a poor peasant waited on him respecting some matter of importance, and was refused admittance, "his lordship being at his studies:" upon ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... the tall fern; in winter they nestled among the roots of trees, in the holes of some gnarled old trunk, and crept into the clefts in the rocks. Their dress was fine and elegant: the little men wore coats and hose of moss, and the little women dresses of pretty variegated flowers, leaves, and gossamer, according as the weather was warm or cold. They never felt the time long, having always plenty of employment; they had to ...
— The King of Root Valley - and his curious daughter • R. Reinick

... he lay, as though he slept; marble-white, and beautiful as a statue wrought by the hand of a god. But from the cruel wound in the white thigh, ripped open by the boar's profaning tusk, the red blood dripped, in rhythmic flow, crimsoning the green moss under him. With a moan of unutterable anguish, Aphrodite threw herself beside him, and pillowed his dear head in her tender arms. Then, for a little while, life's embers flickered up, his cold lips tried to form themselves into a smile of understanding and held ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang

... of the change herself. Even if there had been any opportunity, she could not play; all desires had died long ago. But there was much of interest. All these crooked, broken-down moss-grown huts, clustered together on the downs under the high cliffs, each surrounded by its dust-heap and fish-refuse and implements, were to Ditte like so many different worlds; she would have liked to investigate ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo

... headed in for the landing selected, after navigating the stream for a short time longer. The sun had not yet gone down, though under the tall cypress trees, with their great clumps of gray hanging Spanish moss that looked like trailing banners, it was even then beginning ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne

... yet it was fire. The smell of the roses filled the air, and the heat of the flames of them glowed upon his face. He turned an inquiring look upon the lady, and saw that she was now seated in an ancient chair, the legs of which were crusted with gems, but the upper part like a nest of daisies and moss ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald

... led Big Chief to the beavers' village on the island. Here were many lodges, built of sticks, grass and moss, and plastered with clay. ...
— Story Hour Readers Book Three • Ida Coe and Alice J. Christie

... and past emotions. The long High Street which he threaded now began to change its bustling character, and slide, as it were gradually, into the high road of a suburb. On the left, the houses gave way to the moss-grown pales of Lansmere Park: to the right, though houses still remained, they were separated from each other by gardens, and took the pleasing appearance of villas—such villas as retired tradesmen or ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various



Words linked to "Moss" :   acrocarpous moss, sea moss, moss campion, long moss, floating-moss, pleurocarpous moss, bryophyte, little club moss, moss genus, club moss, moss agate, nonvascular plant, acrocarp, Irish moss, arctic moss, Iceland moss, reindeer moss, moss green, scale moss, spike moss, moss phlox



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