Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of various perennial grasses of the genus Festuca, often cultivated as pasturage.
  • noun Any of several annual grasses of the genus Vulpia of dry habitats.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A straw, wire, pin, or slender stick used to point out the letters to children when learning to read. See first extract under ferular.
  • noun A plectrum with which a lyre or dulcimer is played.
  • noun The style or straight rod by which the shadow is cast in sun-dials of certain forms, as in those set upon upright walls. See sun-dial.
  • noun Fescue-grass. See Festuca.
  • To use a fescue in teaching pupils to read.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • verb To use a fescue, or teach with a fescue.
  • noun A straw, wire, stick, etc., used chiefly to point out letters to children when learning to read.
  • noun obsolete An instrument for playing on the harp; a plectrum.
  • noun obsolete The style of a dial.
  • noun (Bot.) A grass of the genus Festuca.
  • noun (Bot.) a genus of grasses (Festuca) containing several species of importance in agriculture. Festuca ovina is sheep's fescue; F. elatior is meadow fescue.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A straw, wire, stick, etc., used chiefly to point out letters to children when learning to read.
  • noun A hardy grass commonly used to border golf fairways in temperate climates. Any member of the genus Festuca.
  • verb To use a fescue, or teach with a fescue.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun grass with wide flat leaves cultivated in Europe and America for permanent pasture and hay and for lawns

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Alteration of Middle English festu, straw, from Old French, from Late Latin festūcum, from Latin festūca.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old French festu (modern fétu), from Proto-Romance festu, from Latin festuca ‘stalk, stem, straw’.

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Examples

  • Also, thank you for explaining the word fescue -- one of the major livestock forage grasses an lawn grasses for that matter in the eastern US is called fescue, and now I know why!

    Ferule & Fescue Flavia 2006

  • As I understand it, in a process developed by a Kiwi agricultural scientist working in cooperation with the airport, an endophyte fungus is introduced to a certain kind of grass called fescue and the end product is given the catchy name Grasslanz Technology.

    Christine Negroni: Airport Sends Biological Message to Critters: Planes Suck Christine Negroni 2011

  • As I understand it, in a process developed by a Kiwi agricultural scientist working in cooperation with the airport, an endophyte fungus is introduced to a certain kind of grass called fescue and the end product is given the catchy name Grasslanz Technology.

    Christine Negroni: Airport Sends Biological Message to Critters: Planes Suck Christine Negroni 2011

  • As I understand it, in a process developed by a Kiwi agricultural scientist working in cooperation with the airport, an endophyte fungus is introduced to a certain kind of grass called fescue and the end product is given the catchy name Grasslanz Technology.

    Christine Negroni: Airport Sends Biological Message to Critters: Planes Suck Christine Negroni 2011

  • As I understand it, in a process developed by a Kiwi agricultural scientist working in cooperation with the airport, an endophyte fungus is introduced to a certain kind of grass called fescue and the end product is given the catchy name Grasslanz Technology.

    Christine Negroni: Airport Sends Biological Message to Critters: Planes Suck Christine Negroni 2011

  • But for everblue weed control, the fescue is the first choice.

    Dealing With The Daylily Hill-It Is Imperative « Fairegarden 2009

  • The fairways will be the native fescue, which is already growing in the slacks.

    The Thistle and the Bee Shoumatoff, Alex 2008

  • In the 1970s, researchers discovered an endophyte in fescue that caused a disease called fescue toxicosis.

    TheHorse.com News 2009

  • Through the controlled burn, native seeds will have the chance to meet a bare ground that is no longer covered with species such as fescue and lespedeza, and dense thatch.

    TradingMarkets 2010

  • Cook and Goldstein consulted scientists before deciding on a deep underground layer of soil and sand, as well as a mixture of tall fescue Wolfpack, Firenze and Turbo and Kentucky bluegrass seed.

    Nation's 'front yard' gets green grass makeover 2011

Comments

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  • The style of a dial. --Century Dictionary

    September 28, 2011

  • "John and his mother swished through carpets of vetches and fescues or pushed their way through the bushes, splashing through springs that broke through the turf and flowed through the grass in secret cascades."

    John Saturnall's Feast by Lawrence Norfolk, p 42

    November 10, 2012