Spanish moss
2
6.7
- noun
- /ˈspænɪʃ mɔs/
- US
:
musgo español
- They drove through the Garden District, where Spanish moss hung like beards from the trees.
- draped in Spanish moss
Examples
-
Her home was surrounded by oak, cypress, and mockernut hickory trees, all draped heavily in Spanish moss.
Fiction book (2001) -
It has live oak and Spanish moss.
-
There's Spanish moss and live oak.
-
She watched the children pick up twigs, Spanish moss, leaves, anything they could find.
Fiction book (2001) -
On either side, Spanish moss draped languidly from the live oaks' low branches.
Fiction book (2000) -
There’s this lovely old town and those beautiful oak trees and Spanish moss.
Fiction book (1998) -
The cemetery is on a piece of high rolling ground covered with huge live oaks whose Spanish moss hangs so low it brushes your hair as you walk under the limbs.
Fiction book (2001) -
In winter, barren limbs draped in Spanish moss graze the pale-green mat of algae that covers its surface.
Academic text (2011) -
Walton County lies in a largely rural region where the live oaks and Spanish moss of the Old South meet modern coastal Florida along a beachfront stretch of swank homes that some call the Emerald Coast.
Academic text (2006) -
The park is filled with live oaks that are draped in beautiful Spanish moss.
Synonyms
A hanging plant with soft gray-green strands that drape from tree branches
A plant that grows on trees with long gray-green hanging strands
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound is compositionally an adjective + noun so a learner who knows 'Spanish' and 'moss' will infer it denotes a kind of plant (i.e., a type of 'moss' associated with 'Spanish'). However, the name is conventional and misleading — the plant is a specific bromeliad not actually from Spain and not a true moss — so the exact referent and nuances are not predictable from the parts alone.
Etymology
Spanish moss may come from a simple image: early settlers saw its long, grey, hair-like strands hanging from trees and thought they looked like the long hair or beards of Spanish priests, so they called it Spanish and, since it grows on trees, moss. That's why Spanish moss today means the grey, hanging plant.