a. (See also LEAVY.) [f. LEAF sb. + -Y1.]
1. Having, or abounding in, leaves; clothed with leaves or foliage; made or consisting of leaves.
1552. Huloet, Leaffy, or ful of leaues.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., I. 491. Soft Whispers run along the leafy Woods. Ibid., Virg. Past., VII. 7. Ye Trees, whose leafy Shades those mossy Fountains keep.
1725. Pope, Odyss., XI. 235. Autumn … The leafy honours scattering on the ground.
1798. Coleridge, Anc. Mar., V. xviii. In the leafy month of June.
1817. Moore, Lalla R., Pref. (1850), 8. Stranger, spread Thy leafiest bed.
1864. Tennyson, En. Arden, 97. The leafy lanes behind the down.
1893. N. Gale, Country Muse, Ser. II. 101. In leafy Warwickshire.
b. spec. in Bot. Foliate.
1776. J. Lee, Introd. Bot., Explan. Terms 379. Foliatus, leafy, furnished with Leaves.
1870. Hooker, Stud. Flora, 115. Flowering stems 3–5 in., lateral, ascending, leafy.
c. That produces broad-bladed leaves, as distinguished from other kinds of foliage.
1879. D. M. Wallace, Australas., xi. 222. We have many Indian genera of leafy trees, very different from the usual Australian type.
2. Of the nature of a leaf; resembling a leaf.
a. Said of the parts of a plant.
1671. Grew, Anat. Plants, I. iv. § 17 (1682), 32. Every bud, besides its proper Leaves, is covered with divers Leafy Pannicles or Surfoyls.
1727. Bradley, Fam. Dict., s.v. Elm, It bears a single leav’d Flower … which turns to a membranous or leafy Fruit in the Form of a Heart.
1847. W. E. Steele, Field Bot., 30. Cal. of 5 leafy teeth.
1851. Carpenter, Man. Phys. (ed. 2), 466. They may form … fronds (expanded leafy surfaces).
b. Of other substances: Laminate.
1754. Lewis, in Phil. Trans., XLVIII. 668. A leafy or fibrous texture, a purplish colour … are peculiar to the mixtures with lead.
1791. Pearson, ibid., LXXXI. 324. A … leafy, or mica-like sediment.
1881. Borings, II. 26 (E. D. D.). Leafy clay with scares of sand.
3. Comb., as leafy-branched adj.
1837. Macgillivray, Withering’s Brit. Plants (ed. 4), 340. Leafy-branched Spurge.
