fern seed


noun
  1. the spores of ferns, formerly supposed to have the power to make persons invisible.

Origin of fern seed

1
First recorded in 1590–1600

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use fern seed in a sentence

  • She sat rocking herself to and fro in her sorrow, while the old woman threw the fern seed, picked, alas!

    A Fortunate Term | Angela Brazil
  • At one period it was believed that "fern-seed," as the fern-spores were called, possessed various miraculous powers.

    How to Know the Ferns | Frances Theodora Parsons
  • Nay, I think rather you are more beholden to the night than to fern-seed, for your walking invisible.

    How to Know the Ferns | Frances Theodora Parsons
  • Prance and the sentries had, for each other, the secret of fern-seed, they walked invisible.

  • The first thing to be done was to get rid of the fern-seed which she now regarded as a hateful thing.

British Dictionary definitions for fern seed

fern seed

noun
  1. the minute particles by which ferns reproduce themselves, formerly thought to be invisible. Possession of them was thought to make a person invisible

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012