lichen

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   Any of many symbiotic organisms, being associations of algae and fungi, often found as white or yellow-to-blue–green patches on rocks, old walls, etc.

   The Beaches of Lukannon–the winter wheat so tall, / The dripping, crinkled lichens, and the sea-fog drenching all!

2. 2
   noun

   Something which gradually spreads across something else, causing damage.

   Meanwhile, abiding a day of judgment, she fought ceaselessly to deny the bitter drops in her cup, to tear back the slow, the intangibly slow growth of a hot, corrosive lichen eating into her heart.

3. 3
   verb

   To cover with lichen.

   […] making the rocks assume the mould of age and lichening the trees with damp beauty.

4. 4
   noun

   any thallophytic plant of the division Lichenes

Simplified etymology

Lichen was borrowed through Latin lichen from a Greek word meaning “what eats around itself,” a reference to its manner of growth. In both ancient Greek and English, the word could also denote a skin disease.

Borrowed from Latin līchēn, from Ancient Greek λειχήν (leikhḗn), from λείχω (leíkhō, “to lick”). Originally used of liverwort; the modern sense first recorded 1715.

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary