mossyadj.n.

c1450 tr. G. Deguileville Pilgrimage Lyfe Manhode (Cambr.) (1869) 107 (MED) For j sigh hire al mossy [a1475 (?a1430) Lydgate Pilgrimage Life Man moosy-heryd; Fr. moussue] and of mosse al rouh, foul and old.

a1522 G. Douglas in tr. Virgil Æneid (1959) vii. Prol. 57 Brovne muris kythit thar wysnyt mossy hew.

?1573 L. Lloyd Pilgrimage of Princes f. 133 Hee yesterday renowmed Prince..To daye in mouldred mossie mire, layde in his fatall graue.

1596 J. Dalrymple tr. J. Leslie Hist. Scotl. (1888) I. 35 This land..will be sax, sevin, or viii. cubites hich of fat mossie ground as glew, bot maist barren.

1661 J. Childrey Britannia Baconica (ed. 2) 167 By Chatmoss in this shire is a low mossey ground.

1792 R. Burns in J. Johnson Scots Musical Museum IV. 341 Not Gowrie's rich valley, nor Forth's sunny shores, To me hae the charms o' yon wild, mossy moors.

1796 J. Morse Amer. Universal Geogr. (new ed.) II. 175 The rains of so many ages subsiding on the lower grounds, have converted most of the extensive plains into mossy morasses.

1821 Lonsdale Mag. 2 289 Ye mun gang oor a bit ev mossy ground.

1845 New Statist. Acct. Scotl. XIV. 120 Many of the natives drink mossy and surface water.

1930 W. Lothian Courier 3 Jan. 2/7 He crawls among the heather, Hides in a mossy hag.

1994 Jrnl. Ecol. 82 376/2 An unvisited island in the same Shetland archipelago..has a probability of around 0.5 of containing mossy ground, mud or bog, but is increasingly unlikely to contain open water or stream.

1548 T. Cooper Bibliotheca Eliotæ (rev. ed.) at Muscosus Mossy, couered with mosse.

1565 T. Cooper Thesaurus at Muscosus Solum muscosum, a mossie grounde.

1597 W. Langham Garden of Health 41 The Mossie barke of an Ash.

1628 W. Lisle tr. Virgil Bucol. vii. 61 Ye mossy Fountaines [L. muscosi fontes] and yee Hearbs which bee Softer then sleepe.

1665 R. Boyle Disc. ii. ii, in Occas. Refl. sig. C2^v To..conjure up worm-eaten Carkases out of their Mossy Graves.

1712 A. Pope Messiah in Spectator No. 347 The Mossie Fountains and the Sylvan Shades,..Delight no more.

1818 P. B. Shelley Woodman & Nightingale 23 And every bird lulled on its mossy bough.

1875 Mrs. Randolph Wild Hyacinth I. 3 The soft mossy turf.

1885 R. Bridges Eros & Psyche viii. iv. 93 Echo, sweet Echo, watching up on high, Say hast thou seen to-day my love go by, Or where thou sittest by thy mossy spring?

1953 G. M. Durrell Overloaded Ark xiii. 218 Like a swarm of tiny black fish shimmering out from beneath a green and mossy rock.

1994 Times 17 Jan. 16/1 The common polypody grows on drier walls and mossy treetrunks.

1561 An Other Balade in Chaucer's Wks. f. 344^v O Mossie Quince hangyng by your stalke.

1573 in P. Cunningham Extracts Accts. Revels at Court (1842) 58 vj paier of Mossy buskins.

1601 R. Dolman tr. P. de la Primaudaye French Acad. III. 316 The myrrh which heere wee haue..is blacke, and as if it were scorched, mouldie and mossie on the outside.

1668 Bp. J. Wilkins Ess. Real Char. 112 Bearing mossy flowers.

1837 T. Rivers Rose Amateur's Guide 5 The Moss Rose, or Mossy Provence Rose.

1989 R. Banks Affliction iv. 54 He checked the time, ran his tongue across mossy teeth.

1567 A. Golding tr. Ovid Metamorphosis (new ed.) xii. f. 151 On whose cheekes young mossy downe gan grow.

1579 E. K. in E. Spenser Shepheardes Cal. May 187 Gloss. Young and mossie heares.

1585 J. Higgins tr. Junius Nomenclator 18 Ephebus..a stripling, that hauing passed 14 yeares, beginneth to haue a mossie beard.

1698 J. Fryer New Acct. E.-India & Persia 390 His Beard is Cut neatly, and the Whiskers kept in Cases,..not so mossy or slovenly, as either Turkish or Indian Mahometans.

1796 R. Kirwan Elements Mineral. (ed. 2) II. 132 It [sc. malachite] is found either massive, or..mossy.

1861 J. R. Greene Man. Animal Kingdom II. 83 The slender mossy threads which compose the connecting stem of smaller species.

1887 D. Maguire Art of Massage (ed. 4) ii. 19 The strigil is a bent instrument in the form of a sickle, mossy on its edges, and terminating with a handle at one of its extremities, the other rounded off and mossy.

1964 Sunday Mail Mag. (Brisbane) 22 Nov. Villagers in the Caucasus have been smoking a mossy mixture known as mahorka.

1991 V. Porter Cattle (BNC) 47 The Galloway [cow] is capable of growing a thick, shaggy coat of long, rain-shedding hairs over its thick, soft, mossy undercoat to protect itself in the cold, damp climate of the region.

1938 R. Gathorne-Hardy Wild Flowers Brit. xiv. 89 The ‘Mossies’, like the Lady's Mantles, have been lately divided into numerous species.

1950 R. L. Praeger Nat. Hist. Irel. iii. 144 Saxifragaceae.—Ireland is famous for its richness in that beautiful and heart-breaking group, the ‘mossies’.

1694 P. A. Motteux Wks. F. Rabelais (1737) iv. xxix. 119 A Mossy-chin'd Demy-giant.

1883 G. Meredith Woods of Westermain 16 Mossy-footed squirrels leap, Soft as winnowing plumes of Sleep.

1744 J. Thomson Spring in Seasons (new ed.) 18 When..whitening, down their mossy-tinctur'd Stream Descends the billowy Foam.

1945 M. D. Potter Fiber to Fabric xii. 239 Mossy crepe,..fabric with texture giving fine moss effect.

1957 M. B. Picken Fashion Dict. 88 Mossy c[repe]. Fabric woven to give a fine, moss-like surface.

1810 F. A. Michaux Histoire des Arbres Forestiers de l'Amérique Septentrionale I. 21 Q[ercus] muscosa, Mossy cup oak.

1819 tr. F. A. Michaux N. Amer. Sylva I. 32 The acorns are of an elongated oval form, and are enclosed in cups of nearly the same configuration, of which the scales are prominent and recurved, except near the edge, where they terminate in slender flexible filaments; from this peculiarity I have derived the name of Mossy-cup Oak.

1884 W. Miller Dict. Eng. Names Plants 95/2 Mossy-cup oak, Quercus Cerris.

1952 Amer. Midland Naturalist 47 55 The vegetation consists of an intolerant association of young and maturing..black oaks (Quercus velutina), mossy cup oak (Quercus macrocarpa), [etc.].

1969 T. H. Everett Living Trees of World 118/1 The burr oak or mossy cup oak (Q. macrocarpa) is sometimes 170 feet tall.

1894 S. Ramón y Cajal in Proc. Royal Soc. 55 460 Les fibres moussues.

1913 Cunningham's Text-bk. Anat. (ed. 4) 581 (caption) Moss fibres.]

1920 S. W. Ranson Anat. Nerv. Syst. xiii. 209 There are also two kinds of afferent fibers which enter the cortex from the white center, and are known as climbing and mossy fibers respectively.

1975 Nature 11 Sept. 86/1 Profuse branches of the granule cell dendrites curve around and encapsulate the expanded terminal of a mossy fibre, forming a tangled ball of dendrites and axons.

1990 Brain 113 103 Marr..hypothesized that the two main inputs to the Purkinje cells of the cerebellar cortex, the climbing and mossy fibres, provide distinctive signals in the establishment and maintenance of associative events.

1885 C. A. Siringo Texas Cow Boy viii. 75 They were all old mossy horn fellows from seven to twenty-seven years old.

1944 R. F. Adams Western Words 101/2 Mossy-horn, a Texas longhorn steer, six or more years old, whose horns have become wrinkled and scaly... The term sometimes is slangily applied to an old cowman.

1973 R. D. Symons Where Wagon Led i. vi. 93 It only takes one ole' mossy-horn to take fright at his own shadder to start the whole lot off.

1800 J. E. Smith Flora Britannica II. 457 Saxifraga hypnoides... Angl. Mossy Saxifrage, or Ladies' Cushion... On the mountains of Derbyshire, Westmoreland, Scotland and Wales in many places.

1922 H. S. Salt Call of Wildflower xvii. 130 At the summit [of Ingleborough] were mossy saxifrage and vernal sandwort.

1956 Dict. Gardening (Royal Hort. Soc.) (ed. 2) IV. 1878/2 All the well-known ‘mossy’ Saxifrages belong to this section [sc. Dactyloides], and of these there are more hybrids and garden forms than species.

1992 Garden Answers Jan. 11/1 Mossy saxifrages such as ‘London Pride’ are ideal rock plants for a shady spot.

1858 A. Gray Bot. for Young People & Common Schools ii. 156 Mossy stonecrop. Small and creeping, moss-like.

1892 New Sydenham Soc. Lexicon at Mossy Mossy stonecrop, the Sedum acre.

1925 Amer. Jrnl. Bot. 12 122 Sedum acre L. Mossy Stonecrop.

1986 N. Dubie Dream in Springhouse i. 16 She held a tiny quartz knife And mossy stonecrop.