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Glite Dictionary
fescue grass

fescue grass

4.2
A grass with wide flat leaves grown for lawns and for animals to eat
  • noun
  • /ˈfɛskjuː ɡræs/
translation icon : festuca
  • To create a lush lawn, consider planting fescue grass in shady areas where other grasses struggle.

Examples

  • The farmer decided to cultivate fescue grass for hay due to its rapid growth and nutritional value.

  • Those were hearty country types, or rather they were city people who, through taste and habit, had evolved into country types; the kind of people who showed dogs, kept sheep, talked about fescue grass, and, like responsible citizens, manned the polls at election time.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • The most explicit example for this is the larvae of the Silver-spotted Skipper, which feed on sheep's fescue grass, which in turn is never allowed to grow too plentifully by grazing cows.

    The Duke of Burgundy (2014)

  • Many golf courses use fescue grass for its durability and aesthetic appeal.

Synonyms

fescue
vsfescue grass
2 7.7

A grass with wide flat leaves grown for pastures, hay, and lawns

is the same idea but expressed as the everyday general name
meadow fescue
vsfescue grass
6.8

A grass that lives for many years with wide flat leaves grown for animal grazing, hay, and lawns

is similar but does not emphasize perennial growth
Festuca elatior
vsfescue grass
  • Specialized
8.9

A grass with wide flat leaves grown in Europe and America for pasture, hay and lawns

refers to the grass type in general rather than a single species

Surface Forms

fescue grass singular
fescue grasses plural

Morphology

fescue + grass

The meaning 'a type of grass with wide, flat leaves' is directly and compositionally derived from 'fescue' (a named grass variety) + 'grass' (the plant). This noun+noun type-labeling pattern is a straightforward, cross-linguistic compositional pattern, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents would readily understand the MWE.

Etymology

Fescue grass may come from the old word 'festuca', which meant a stalk or piece of straw and gives a clear picture of a stalky plant. So fescue (the stalk) plus grass is why the name now means a tough, wide-leaved grass used in lawns and pastures.