Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of numerous grasslike plants of the family Cyperaceae, characteristically having solid three-sided stems, leaves arranged in three rows, and spikelets of inconspicuous flowers.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A flock of herons or bitterns, sometimes of cranes.
- noun Synonyms Covey, etc. See
flock . - noun A plant of the genus Carex, an extensive genus of grass-like cyperaceous plants.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Bot.) Any plant of the genus Carex, perennial, endogenous, innutritious herbs, often growing in dense tufts in marshy places. They have triangular jointless stems, a spiked inflorescence, and long grasslike leaves which are usually rough on the margins and midrib. There are several hundred species.
- noun (Zoöl.) A flock of herons.
- noun (Zoöl.) the clapper rail. See under 5th
Rail . - noun (Zoöl.) a small European singing bird (
Acrocephalus phragmitis ). It often builds its nest among reeds; -- called alsosedge bird ,sedge wren ,night warbler , andScotch nightingale .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Any plant of the genus
Carex , the true sedges, perennial, endogenous herbs, often growing in dense tufts in marshy places. They have triangular jointless stems, a spiked inflorescence, and long grasslike leaves which are usually rough on the margins and midrib. There are several hundred species. - noun Any plant of the family
Cyperaceae . - noun Obsolete spelling of
siege . - noun Alternative spelling of segge.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun grasslike or rushlike plant growing in wet places having solid stems, narrow grasslike leaves and spikelets of inconspicuous flowers
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Ah kingly kiss – no more regret nor old deep memories to mar the bliss; where the low sedge is thick, the gold day-lily outspreads and rests beneath soft fluttering of red swan wings and the warm quivering of the red swan's breast.
Hymen Hilda Doolittle 1921
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The perfect insects haunt sunny sedges and tree-stems -- whence the one is often called the sedge, the other the alder-fly -- and from thence drop into the trouts 'mouths; and within six inches of the bank will the good angler work, all the more sedulously and even hopefully if he sees no fish rising.
Prose Idylls, New and Old Charles Kingsley 1847
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The whole of the different fields were covered with either the stalks of weeds, corn-stalks, or what is called sedge -- something like spear-grass upon the poor limestone in England; and the steward told me nothing would eat it, which is true.
George Washington: Farmer Paul Leland Haworth
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Insects now enrich the air, frogs pipe cheerily in the shallows, soon followed by the ouzel, which is the first bird to visit a glacier lake, as the sedge is the first of plants.
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The grass beside the well, buoyantly undisturbed, leads to an analogy with sedge which is growing near the sea on much shakier ground.
Poem of the week: What mystery pervades a well! by Emily Dickinson Carol Rumens 2010
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A kind of sedge rush, common in swampy places in the West India islands, the _Adme cyperus_, enjoys a reputation for the cure of yellow fever.
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Many of the boulders are moss-covered, a kind of sedge and long, flag-like grass spring among the crevices and add to the pitfalls, and the whole wood really has the air of having been bewitched.
Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts Rosalind Northcote
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It denotes some kind of sedge or reed which grows in marshy places.
Easton's Bible Dictionary M.G. Easton 1897
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The whole of the different fields were covered with either the stalks of weeds, corn-stalks, or what is called sedge ” something like spear-grass upon the poor limestone in England; and the steward told me nothing would eat it, which is true.
George Washington Farmer Haworth, Paul L 1915
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Earlier, three canoeists wended along the quiet millstream on the outgoing tide – passing marsh marigolds and partially submerged trunks of silvery willows towards reed beds, with spears of new growth and the scratchy song of returned sedge warblers.
yarb commented on the word sedge
Citation on cleg.
June 29, 2008
wytukaze commented on the word sedge
Also a (technically incorrect) term of venery for bitterns and cranes; the correct term would be ‘a siege of…’.
“Here she dwelt with a retinue of aged servants, fantastic women and men half imbecile, who salaamed before her with eastern humility and yet addressed her in such terms as gossips use. Had she given them life they could not have obeyed with more reverence. Quaint things the women wrought for her—pomanders and cushions of thistledown; and the men were never happier than when they could tell her of the first thrush’s egg in the thorn-bush or the sedge of bitterns that haunted the marsh. She was their goddess and their daughter.�?
— R. Murray Gilchrist, A Night on the Moor and Other Tales of Dread
November 13, 2008
bilby commented on the word sedge
I wander by the edge
Of this desolate lake
Where wind cries in the sedge
Until the axle break
That keeps the stars in their round
And hands hurl in the deep
The banners of East and West
And the girdle of light is unbound,
Your breast will not lie by the breast
Of your beloved in sleep.
- W.B. Yeats, 'Aedh hears the Cry of the Sedge '.
September 18, 2009
natalie_portmanteaux commented on the word sedge
Sedge, a portmanteau of saw-like and edge. Sedge leaves have serrated edges unlike the other graminoids: grasses and rushes.
June 7, 2020