Crossword clues for frond
frond
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Frond \Frond\ (fr[o^]nd), n. [L. frons, frondis, a leafy branch, foliage.] (Bot.) The organ formed by the combination or union into one body of stem and leaf, and often bearing the fructification; as, the frond of a fern or of a lichen or seaweed; also, the peculiar leaf of a palm tree.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1785, from Latin frons (genitive frondis) "leafy branch, green bough, foliage." Adopted by Linnæus for the leaf-like organs of ferns, palms, etc., as a word distinct from folium. Later given a more precise meaning in botany.
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context botany English) The leaf of a fern, especially a compound leaf. 2 Any fern-like leaf or other object resembling a fern leaf.
WordNet
n. compound leaf of a fern or palm or cycad
Wikipedia
A frond is a large, divided leaf. In both common usage and botanical nomenclature, the leaves of ferns are referred to as fronds and some botanists restrict the term to this group. Other botanists allow the term frond to also apply to the large leaves of cycads and palms ( Arecaceae). "Frond" is commonly used to identify a large, compound leaf, but if the term is used botanically to refer to the leaves of ferns, it may be applied to smaller and undivided leaves.
Fronds have particular terms describing their components. Like all leaves, fronds usually have a stalk connecting them to the main stem. In botany, this leaf stalk is generally called a petiole, but in regard to fronds specifically it is called a stipe, and it supports a flattened blade (which may be called a lamina), and the continuation of the stipe into this portion is called the rachis. The blades may be simple (undivided), pinnatifid (deeply incised, but not truly compound), pinnate (compound with the leaflets arranged along a rachis to resemble a feather), or further compound (subdivided). If compound, a frond may be compound once, twice, or more.
Usage examples of "frond".
Boca experience, and many restaurants in town offered alfresco seating beneath palm trees whose trunks and fronds were studded with strings of tiny white lights.
Above the apricot trees towered thirty majestic palms, their fernlike fronds splayed like open fingers against the starry sky.
But Georgiana saw the light-green moss that clung to the humus, the yellowish fronds of ivy that swept along the ground, the aquamarine moss that dressed up the boulders.
It was very hot, but the afternoon airs were strong enough to lift the British ensign out of its heavy folds and to rustle the graceful fronds of the areca palms.
Mr Mack narrowed his eyes, then let the fronds of the aspidistra fall back in place.
Which meant simply that it was higher ground, well-drained, that there were tall babassu palms, the fronds of which met overhead to form a cathedral-like effect with the last of the evening sunlight streaming down.
He had collected some palm fronds for the task and was devising ways of weaving them together to form meat baskets, a huge one for Bazil and a small one for himself.
The peninsulas sprouted grasping tendrils, thigh-thick at the trunk but narrowing to the dimensions of plant fronds, and then narrowing further, bifurcating into lacy, fernlike hazes of awesome complexity.
Slender purple grasses topped with red and yellow fern-like fronds grew rankly all about us to the height of several feet above my head.
Now, at his gleesome yawp, rabbits, a mile away, ducked their ears, and sensitive plants closed their fearful fronds.
I am wanting ways to kill - no, I mean restrain - the homicidal Gluck, and I get the biography of a frond?
So they rode on, more slowly, uphill through the uncharted forest, where the urrearth trees tangled with blue fronds of Habara fungus and the birds were still and the crackle of the dry undergrowth was the only sound in the air.
The Huskers rustled their fronds, and the Gaspassers emitted noises that indicated that they were about to become airborne.
The Huskers were standing and shaking their fronds at the Gaspassers, who in unison emitted loud noises and rose into the air.
Her heart was beating hard, and she spat and brushed a liatris frond from her mouth.