a. [f. FERN sb.1 + -Y1.]
1. Abounding in fern, overgrown with fern.
1523. Fitzherbert, The Boke of Husbandry, § 50. That sycknes is moste commonly on hylly grounde, ley grounde, and ferny grounde, And some men vse to let them bloudde vnder the eye in a vaine for the same cause.
1667. Phil. Trans., II. 525. The Surface thereof … is Heathy, Ferny and Furzy.
a. 1722. Lisle, Husb. (1752), 4. A red, sandy, ferny ground, not worth twelve-pence per acre.
1808. Scott, Marm., IV. xv.
| The wild buck bells from ferny brake, | |
| The coot dives merry on the lake. |
1860. Donaldson, Bush Lays, 87. The flat ferny wastes all lie sleeping.
2. Of or pertaining to fern, consisting of fern.
1710. Philips, Pastorals, vi. 29.
| When Locusts in the Fearny Bushes cry, | |
| When Ravens pant, and Snakes in Caverns lye. |
a. 1717. Parnell, Flies, 72.
| Else, when the flowerets of the season fail, | |
| And this your ferny shade forsakes the vale, | |
| Though one would save ye, not one grain of wheat | |
| Should pay such songster’s idling at my gate. |
1804. J. Grahame, The Sabbath (1808), 67.
| Woodless its banks but green with ferny leaves, | |
| And thinly strew’d with heath-bells up and down. |
1884. Bazaar, 10 Dec., 621/5. A … gorsy, ferny growth.
3. Of a fern-like nature, resembling fern.
1791. E. Darwin, Bot. Gard., I. 76.
| Hence dusky Iron sleep in dark abodes, | |
| And ferny foliage nestles in the nodes. |
1870. J. Rhoades, Poems, 131.
| How pleasant through the long, dark winter-hour, | |
| When every pane is hoar with ferny rime, | |
| To dream dear Summer back, before her time, | |
| And fancy-paint the field with herb and flower! |
