tongue fern
- noun
- Specialized
:
helecho lengua
- The gardener proudly showed off the tongue fern with its unique frond shape.
Examples
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During our hike, we spotted a beautiful tongue fern growing on the forest floor.
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In the botanical garden, the tongue fern flourished among other exotic plants.
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There's a Heart's Tongue Fern right there.
Synonyms
A green plant from East Asia with soft leaves shaped like tongues
A fern from East Asia with leaves shaped like tongues
A fern from East Asia with long tongue-shaped leaves often grown as a houseplant
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound 'tongue fern' is directly descriptive: 'fern' identifies the plant and 'tongue' describes the shape of its fronds, following the common English modifier+head noun pattern. A B1 learner who knows 'tongue' and 'fern' can readily infer it is a fern with tongue-shaped fronds, a naming strategy that is cross-linguistically common for plant names.
Etymology
The plant name tongue fern may come from the shape of its leaves: the long, flat leaves of the fern look like a tongue, so people used that image to name it. That's why tongue fern means 'a fern with tongue-shaped leaves'.
