Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A genus in which the older botanists placed many very heterogeneous species of filamentous cryptogams.
- noun [lowercase; pl. confervæ (-vē).] The common name of plants of this genus.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Bot.) Any unbranched, slender, green plant of the fresh-water algae. The word is frequently used in a wider sense.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun An
unbranched slender green freshwater alga .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun any of various algae of the genus Tribonema; algae with branching filaments that form scum in still or stagnant fresh water
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Known as far back as 400 B.C.E. Greece, comfrey is an extraordinary plant whose name derives from the Latin conferva, meaning "water plant healer."
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The floor of the mortar gallery having been already laid down by Mr. Watt and his men on a former visit, was merely soaked with the sprays; but the joisting-beams which supported it had, in the course of the winter, been covered with a fine downy conferva produced by the range of the sea.
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At the latter end of last season, as was formerly noticed, the beacon was painted white, and from the bleaching of the weather and the sprays of the sea the upper parts were kept clean; but within the range of the tide the principal beams were observed to be thickly coated with a green stuff, the conferva of botanists.
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A plant of this kind is not the less dominant because some conferva inhabiting the water or some parasitic fungus is infinitely more numerous in individuals and more widely diffused.
II. Variation under Nature. Wide-Ranging, Much Diffused, and Common Species Vary Most 1909
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But if the conferva or parasitic fungus exceeds its allies in the above respects, it will then be dominant within its own class.
II. Variation under Nature. Wide-Ranging, Much Diffused, and Common Species Vary Most 1909
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At the latter end of last season, as was formerly noticed, the beacon was painted white, and from the bleaching of the weather and the sprays of the sea the upper parts were kept clean; but within the range of the tide the principal beams were observed to be thickly coated with a green stuff, the conferva of botanists.
Records of a Family of Engineers Robert Louis Stevenson 1872
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The floor of the mortar gallery having been already laid down by Mr. Watt and his men on a former visit, was merely soaked with the sprays; but the joisting-beams which supported it had, in the course of the winter, been covered with a fine downy conferva produced by the range of the sea.
Records of a Family of Engineers Robert Louis Stevenson 1872
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"Had two," said Dick, watching the approaching punt, which was still half a mile away, and being poled steadily in and out of the winding water-lane, now hidden by the dry rustling reeds which stood covered with strands of filmy conferva or fen scum.
Dick o' the Fens A Tale of the Great East Swamp George Manville Fenn 1870
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A clammy conferva covers everything except the mosaics upon tribune, roof, and clerestory, which defy the course of age.
Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series John Addington Symonds 1866
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A clammy conferva covers everything except the mosaics upon tribune, roof, and clerestory, which defy the course of age.
Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete Series I, II, and III John Addington Symonds 1866
chained_bear commented on the word conferva
"He passed a mug of the rainwater collected long ago, north of the Line.
"Stephen smelt to it, poured a little into a phial and looked at it with a lens. Delight dawned upon his grave, considering face and spread wide. 'Will you look at this, now?' he said, passing it to Martin. 'Perhaps the finest conferva soup I have ever seen; and I believe I make out some African forms.'
"'There are also some ill-looking polyps, and some creatures no doubt close kin to the hydroblabs,' said Martin. 'I should not drink it for a deanery.'"
--Patrick O'Brian, The Far Side of the World, 168–169
February 20, 2008