ivy

• POS: Noun
• HYPHEN: I=vy

CIDE DICTIONARY

ivy, n. [AS. īfig; akin to OHG. ebawi, ebah, G. epheu.].

 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.  [1913 Webster]
"Direct
The clasping ivy where to climb."  [1913 Webster]
"Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere."  [1913 Webster]

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 (Zoöl.), 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.

OXFORD DICTIONARY

ivy, n. (pl. -ies)
1 a climbing evergreen shrub, Hedera helix, with usu. dark-green shining five-angled leaves.
2 any of various other climbing plants including ground ivy and poison ivy.

Idiom

Ivy League a group of universities in the eastern US.

Etymology

OE ifig

THESAURUS

ivy

aestival, algae, autophyte, bean, beryl-green, berylline, blue-green, bluish-green, bracken, brown algae, chartreuse, chloranemic, chlorine, chlorotic, citrine, citrinous, climber, conferva, confervoid, creeper, diatom, emerald, fern, foliaged, fruits and vegetables, fucus, fungus, glaucescent, glaucous, glaucous-green, grapevine, grassy, green, green algae, green as grass, green-blue, greenish, greenish-blue, greenish-yellow, greensick, gulfweed, herb, heterophyte, holly, ivy-green, kelp, leafy, leaved, legume, lentil, liana, lichen, liverwort, mold, moss, mushroom, olivaceous, olive, olive-green, parasite, parasitic plant, pea, perthophyte, phytoplankton, planktonic algae, plant families, porraceous, puffball, pulse, red algae, rockweed, rust, saprophyte, sargasso, sargassum, sea lentil, sea moss, sea wrack, seaweed, smaragdine, smut, springlike, succulent, summerlike, summery, toadstool, verdant, verdurous, vernal, vernant, vert, vetch, vine, virescent, wort, wrack, yellowish-green