moss

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A small, soft, green plant with no flowers that grows in thick patches on damp ground, trees and stones.

   Soft green moss covered the old gravestones.

2. 2
   verb

   To become covered with moss.

   The old stone wall had mossed over with age.

From Middle English mos, from Old English mos (“bog, marsh, moss”), from Proto-West Germanic *mos (“marsh, moss”), from Proto-Germanic *musą (“marsh, moss”), from Proto-Indo-European *mews- (“moss”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Moas (“moss”), West Frisian moas (“moss”), Dutch mos (“moss”), German Low German Moss (“moss”), German Moos (which shows the same polysemy of "moss" and "bog, fen"), Danish mos (“moss”), Swedish mossa (“moss”), Icelandic mosi (“moss”), Latin muscus (“moss”), Russian мох (mox, “moss”), Polish mech. Doublet of mousse.

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