The Collaborative International Dictionary
Ivy \I"vy\, n.; pl. Ivies. [AS. [=i]fig; akin to OHG. ebawi, ebah, G. epheu.] (Bot.) A plant of the genus Hedera ( Hedera helix), common in Europe. Its leaves are evergreen, dark, smooth, shining, and mostly five-pointed; the flowers yellowish and small; the berries black or yellow. The stem clings to walls and trees by rootlike fibers.
Direct
The clasping ivy where to climb.
--Milton.
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere.
--Milton.
American ivy. (Bot.) See Virginia creeper.
English ivy (Bot.), a popular name in America for the ivy proper ( Hedera helix).
German ivy (Bot.), a creeping plant, with smooth, succulent stems, and fleshy, light-green leaves; a species of Senecio ( Senecio scandens).
Ground ivy. (Bot.) Gill ( Nepeta Glechoma).
Ivy bush. (Bot.) See Mountain laurel, under Mountain.
Ivy owl (Zo["o]l.), the barn owl.
Ivy tod (Bot.), the ivy plant.
--Tennyson.
Japanese ivy (Bot.), a climbing plant ( Ampelopsis tricuspidata), closely related to the Virginia creeper.
Poison ivy (Bot.), an American woody creeper ( Rhus Toxicodendron), with trifoliate leaves, and greenish-white berries. It is exceedingly poisonous to the touch for most persons.
To pipe in an ivy leaf, to console one's self as best one
can. [Obs.]
--Chaucer.
West Indian ivy, a climbing plant of the genus Marcgravia.
Usage examples of "english ivy".
Nor did I see the rust-tinctured network like veins or fossil trails imprinted in the limestone by English ivy that was dying in places, had been dying for years, and was withering away.
It was the birds fluttering and thrashing in the English ivy outside the windowdamned plague of sparrows, doctor Savage called them and in the near distance raucous crows, quite a flock of crows, settling only briefly in the wooded area to the rear of the house, always at dawn, then moving on.
At the farthest edge of the porch, looking half trapped in thick English ivy that was overtaking things, a short stout white man sat on a rocker.
Duncan had awoken that morning to find his wife wrapped around him like English ivy clinging to a castle wall.
There were lots of plants on the sills, hanging in windows -philodendron, azalea, English ivy.
Wire sensors of a crude sort ran along the top of the wall, gracefully concealed in masses of English ivy.
Virginia creeper grows like mad in California and with English ivy and Lady Banksia roses to help out, I was sure I could transform my palace into a perfect.