Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun An obsolete spelling of
mistletoe .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun See
mistletoe .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Archaic form of
mistletoe .
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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(Hey bill, I know you, or your staff is reading this so notice I have misseltoe attached to my shirt tail)
Think Progress » O’Reilly Tonight: How Blogs Are Destroying America 2005
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December 20, 2007 at 7:38 am ai saw kitteh nomming santy paws unnerneef teh misseltoe las nite
oh no! - Lolcats 'n' Funny Pictures of Cats - I Can Has Cheezburger? 2007
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An organic being, like the woodpecker or misseltoe, may thus come to be adapted to a score of contingences -- natural selection accumulating those slight variations in all parts of its structure, which are in any way useful to it during any part of its life.
Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 Zoology Various
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We see these beautiful co-adaptations most plainly in the woodpecker and misseltoe; and only a little less plainly in the humblest parasite which clings to the hairs of a quadruped or feathers of a bird; in the structure of the beetle which dives through the water; in the plumed seed which is wafted by the gentlest breeze; in short, we see beautiful adaptations everywhere and in every part of the organic world.
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The author of the 'Vestiges of Creation' would, I presume, say that, after a certain unknown number of generations, some bird had given birth to a woodpecker, and some plant to the misseltoe, and that these had been produced perfect as we now see them; but this assumption seems to me to be no explanation, for it leaves the case of the coadaptations of organic beings to each other and to their physical conditions of life, untouched and unexplained.
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In the case of the misseltoe, which draws its nourishment from certain trees, which has seeds that must be transported by certain birds, and which has flowers with separate sexes absolutely requiring the agency of certain insects to bring pollen from one flower to the other, it is equally preposterous to account for the structure of this parasite, with its relations to several distinct organic beings, by the effects of external conditions, or of habit, or of the volition of the plant itself.
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In the case of the misseltoe, which draws its nourishment from certain trees, which has seeds that must be transported by certain birds, and which has flowers with separate sexes absolutely requiring the agency of certain insects to bring pollen from one flower to the other, it is equally preposterous to account for the structure of this parasite, with its relations to several distinct organic beings, by the effects of external conditions, or of habit, or of the volition of the plant itself.
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In the case of the misseltoe, which draws its nourishment from certain trees, which has seeds that must be transported by certain birds, and which has flowers with separate sexes absolutely requiring the agency of certain insects to bring pollen from one flower to the other, it is equally preposterous to account for the structure of this parasite, with its relations to several distinct organic beings, by the effects of external conditions, or of habit, or of the volition of the plant itself.
Archive 2005-03-01 2005
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The author of the 'Vestiges of Creation' would, I presume, say that, after a certain unknown number of generations, some bird had given birth to a woodpecker, and some plant to the misseltoe, and that these had been produced perfect as we now see them; but this assumption seems to me to be no explanation, for it leaves the case of the coadaptations of organic beings to each other and to their physical conditions of life, untouched and unexplained.
On the Origin of Species~ Introduction Charles Darwin 1859
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In the case of the misseltoe, which draws its nourishment from certain trees, which has seeds that must be transported by certain birds, and which has flowers with separate sexes absolutely requiring the agency of certain insects to bring pollen from one flower to the other, it is equally preposterous to account for the structure of this parasite, with its relations to several distinct organic beings, by the effects of external conditions, or of habit, or of the volition of the plant itself.
On the Origin of Species~ Introduction Charles Darwin 1859
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