Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A common club-moss, Lycopodium clavatum. Also stag's-horn.
  • noun A madrepore coral, Madrepora cervicornis and related species, used for ornament. See cut under Madrepore.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • It was, in truth, a ferocious-looking implement, with a carved, stag-horn handle and long, serrated blade.

    Nevermore Harold Schechter 1999

  • There was the smell of snow in the air, and the moss pools were frozen hard, and beautiful it was to see the stag-horn moss entombed in the clear ice, and the wee water-plants, pale and cold and pitiful, at the bottom of the pools.

    The McBrides A Romance of Arran John Sillars

  • Goldenrod in such great profusion that it seemed the very sunshine of the skies was imprisoned in flower form, stag-horn sumac with its grape-like clusters of red adding brilliancy to the landscape -- everywhere was manifest the dawn of autumnal glory, the splendor that foreruns decay, the beauty that is but the first step in nature's transition from blossom and harvest to mystery and sleep.

    Patchwork A Story of 'The Plain People' Anna Balmer Myers

  • The forest monarchs are curtained with tangled creepers and roped together with serpent-like lianas, stag-horn ferns, and green veils of filmy moss fluttering from every bough.

    Through the Malay Archipelago Emily Richings

  • Stately columns and spreading roots garlanded with stag-horn ferns, waving moss, white and purple orchids, or broad-leaved creepers, falling in sheets and torrents of shining foliage and knitting tree to tree, attest the irrepressible growth of vegetation, which flings a many-coloured veil of blossom and leaf over root, branch, and stem.

    Through the Malay Archipelago Emily Richings

  • The dining hall was prettily decorated with stag-horn, moss, and flowers, and laid out with tables bearing, on one side of the room, a "heavy dinner" for those who had been toiling at the "Bee," and on the other side a light repast for other visitors.

    Missionary Work Among the Ojebway Indians Edward Francis Wilson

  • Close by was a vast stag-horn, laboriously decked with choice and flashing gems, and this also did not lack chasing.

    The Danish History, Books I-IX Grammaticus Saxo

  • The stag-horn plates of the protruding hilt were splintered under the clamp of the mighty jaws, and the long, gleaming teeth made deep dents in the brass beneath.

    The Promise A Tale of the Great Northwest 1921

  • The bit of steel was a hunting-knife with a seven-inch blade, sharp as a razor, and with a distinctive stag-horn handle, which Tex Lynch had used only a few evenings before to remove the skin from a coyote he had brought down.

    Shoe-Bar Stratton Joseph Bushnell Ames 1903

  • He had in his mind's eye a marvel -- stag-horn handle, four blades, saw, awl, file, hoof-hook, corkscrew!

    The Calico Cat Charles Miner Thompson 1902

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  • 1663 BOYLE Consid. Usef. Nat. Philos. II. App. 356 In case Stags Horns cannot be procured for the preparation.

    July 7, 2008