fern

CEFRC1

/fɜːn/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    A green plant with long leaves and no flowers.

  2. 02

    noun

    Extra detail

    A female given name.

Examples

  • Pareiasaurs crashed through vast conifer and fern forests.

  • Fernão Lopes was a Portuguese historian.

At a glance

Sits at C1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
4
Parts of speech
1
Citations
2

Also pronounced

  • /fɛːrn/

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. A topographic surname.

  2. Any of a group of some twenty thousand species of vascular plants classified in the division Pteridophyta that lack seeds and reproduce by shedding spores to initiate an alternation of generations.

More examples

In context

  • "Charlotte is the best storyteller I ever heard," said Fern, poking her dish towel into a cereal bowl.

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

A tall green blank grew beside the damp, shaded creek in the forest.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

From Middle English fern, from Old English fearn, from Proto-West Germanic *farn, from Proto-Indo-European *pornóm (“feather, wing; fern, leaf”), from *p(t)erH- (“fern”). Cognate with Scots fairn (“fern”), West Frisian fear (“fern”), Dutch varen (“fern”), German Farn, Farm (“fern”), Luxembourgish Far (“fern”), Lithuanian spar̃nas (“wing”), Avestan 𐬞𐬀𐬭𐬆𐬥𐬀 (par^əna), Ashkun pār (“leaf”), Kamkata-viri por, přor, Prasuni parëg (“leaf”), Sanskrit पर्ण (parṇá, “wing”).