Moss definitions

môs, mŏs
Moss is a very small seedless plant that lives in moist places and grows in soft feathery patches.

An example of moss is the soft green plants that grow on the ground under a thick forest.

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Any of various other unrelated plants having a similar appearance or manner of growth, such as Irish moss, Spanish moss, and the club mosses.
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Any of various green, usually small, nonvascular plants of the division Bryophyta, having leaflike structures arranged around the stem and spores borne in a capsule.
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A patch or covering of such plants.
noun
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To cover with moss.
verb
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Any of various similar plants, as some lichens and algae.
noun
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Any of various classes (esp. Bryopsida) of very small, green bryophytes having stems with leaflike structures and growing in velvety clusters on rocks, trees, moist ground, etc.
noun
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A growth of these.
noun
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To cover with a growth of moss.
verb
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Any of various green, usually small nonvascular plants of the division Bryophyta. Mosses, unlike liverworts, have some tissues specialized for conducting water and nutrients. As in the other bryophytes, the diploid sporophyte grows on the haploid gametophyte generation, which supplies it with nutrients. Mosses often live in moist, shady areas and grow in clusters or mats. Sphagnum mosses play a crucial role in the ecology of peat bogs.
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Any of a number of plants that look like mosses but are not related to them. For instance, reindeer moss is a lichen, Irish moss is an alga, and Spanish moss is a bromeliad, a flowering plant.
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A surname​.
pronoun
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(computing) Acronym of MIME Object Security Services.
noun
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(software) Acronym of Map Overlay and Statistical System.
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(software) Acronym of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server.
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(trading) Acronym of Market Oriented Sector Selective talks.
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Origin of moss

Middle English from Old English mos bog and from Medieval Latin mossa moss (of Germanic origin)

Sentence Examples

  • The man with eyes the color of the moss in his room materialized from the shadows.

  • Here, too, grows Spanish moss, used by upholsterers.

  • The water moved silently over moss and lichen covered slabs of rocks, forming small pools in the low spots.

  • The latter raises the moss and bark gently with his knife in search of insects; the former lays open logs to their core with his axe, and moss and bark fly far and wide.

  • In the swamps are the bald cypress, the white cedar and the live oak, usually draped in southern long moss; south of Cape Fear river are palmettos, magnolias, prickly ash, the American olive and mock orange; along streams in the Coastal Plain Region are the sour gum, the sweet bay and several species of oak; but the tree that is most predominant throughout the upland portion of this region is the long-leaf or southern pine.

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Words near moss in the Dictionary