MOSSY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does mossy mean? 

• MOSSY (adjective)
  The adjective MOSSY has 2 senses:

1. overgrown with moss

2. (used pejoratively) out of fashion; old fashioned

  Familiarity information: MOSSY used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MOSSY (adjective)

Comparative: mossier   
Superlative: mossiest   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Overgrown with moss

Synonyms:

moss-grown; mossy

Similar:

covered (overlaid or spread or topped with or enclosed within something; sometimes used as a combining form)

Derivation:

moss (tiny leafy-stemmed flowerless plants)

Sense 2

Meaning:

(used pejoratively) out of fashion; old fashioned

Synonyms:

fogyish; moss-grown; mossy; stick-in-the-mud; stodgy

Context example:

moss-grown ideas about family life

Similar:

unfashionable; unstylish (not in accord with or not following current fashion)

 Context examples 

So he just laid his head down on the mossy post, and stood so still that Jo was frightened.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

A lover finds his mistress asleep on a mossy bank; he wishes to catch a glimpse of her fair face without waking her.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

With a darkening face my friend strode along the margin, eagerly observant of every muddy stain upon the mossy surface.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

This area contains mostly mossy cells that receive inputs from the dentate gyrus and pyramidal cells in the CA3 region and also projects back to the dentate gyrus.

(CA4 Field of the Cornu Ammonis, NCI Thesaurus)

This area is small, contains pyramidal cells, and does not contain mossy fiber connections from the dentate gyrus.

(CA2 Field of the Cornu Ammonis, NCI Thesaurus)

At last, when he was almost out of breath, she suddenly threw herself down upon a mossy bank, between two holly-bushes, and looked ruefully at her own dripping feet and bedraggled skirt.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I sing a song, and thanks to the magazine editors I transmute my song into a waft of the west wind sighing through our redwoods, into a murmur of waters over mossy stones that sings back to me another song than the one I sang and yet the same song wonderfully—er—transmuted.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

The third of four regions in the cornu ammonis of the hippocampus which receives inputs from mossy fibers originating from the granule cells in the dentate gyrus and from inputs along the perforant path originating in layers II and III within the entorhinal cortex.

(CA3 Field of the Cornu Ammonis, NCI Thesaurus)

It sounded like the gurgling of a brook over mossy stones in some quiet dell, and the crooning song of it lured me away and out of myself till I was no longer Hump the cabin-boy, nor Van Weyden, the man who had dreamed away thirty-five years among books.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

I folded my shawl double, and spread it over me for a coverlet; a low, mossy swell was my pillow.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)