moss

Etymology

From Middle English mos, from Old English mos (“bog, marsh, moss”), from Proto-Germanic *musą (“marsh, moss”), from Proto-Indo-European *mūs-, *meus- (“moss”). Cognate with Old High German mos (“moss”) (German Moos), Icelandic mosi, Danish mos, Swedish mossa, Latin muscus (“moss”), Russian мох (mox, “moss”),^[1] Polish mech.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /mɒs/
• (US) enPR: môs, IPA^(key): /mɔs/
• (cot–caught merger, Canada) enPR: mäs, IPA^(key): /mɑs/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒs
• Rhymes: -ɔːs

Noun

moss (countable and uncountable, plural mosses)

1. Any of various small, green, seedless plants growing on the ground or on the surfaces of trees, stones, etc.; now specifically, a plant of the division Bryophyta (formerly Musci).
2. (countable) A kind or species of such plants.
3. (informal) Any alga, lichen, bryophyte, or other plant of seemingly simple structure.

   Spanish moss; Irish moss; club moss.

4. (now chiefly Britain regional) A bog; a fen.

   the mosses of the Scottish border

Verb

moss (third-person singular simple present mosses, present participle mossing, simple past and past participle mossed)

1. (intransitive) To become covered with moss.

   An oak whose boughs were mossed with age.

2. (transitive) To cover (something) with moss.

See also

• muscoid

References

• A New English dictionary on historical principles, Volume 6, Sir James Augustus Henry Murray, Sir William Alexander Craigie, Charles Talbut Onions, editors, Clarendon Press, 1908, pages 684-6

Anagrams

• SMOS, soms

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈmoʃː] (Do not confuse with mos (“to wash”).)

• Audio

  (file)

Verb

moss

1. second-person singular subjunctive present indefinite of mos

   Moss fogat! - Brush your teeth!