mossy, a.
(ˈmɒsɪ)
[f. moss n.1 + -y1.]
I. [Cf. moss n.1 I.]
1. Sc. and dial. Marshy, boggy, peaty.
| 1596 Dalrymple tr. Leslie's Hist. Scot. I. 35 This land..will be sax, sevin, or viii cubites hich of fat mossie ground as glew, bot maist barren. 1661 J. Childrey Brit. Baconica 167 Chatmos in this shire is a low mossey ground. 1792 Burns ‘Yon wild, mossy mountains’ ii, Not Gowrie's rich valley, nor Forth's sunny shores, To me hae the charms o' yon wild, mossy moors. 1796 Morse Amer. Geog. II. 175 The rains of so many ages subsiding on the lower grounds, have converted most of the extensive plains into mossy morasses. 1845 New Statist. Acct. Scotl. XIV. 120 Many of the natives drink mossy and surface water. |
II. [
Cf. moss n.1 II.]
2. Overgrown or covered with moss, abounding in moss. Also of a fountain, spring, pool, etc.: Encircled with moss; issuing from, or existing in, a moss-grown rock, etc.
| 1565 Cooper Thesaurus s.v. Muscosus, Solum muscosum, a mossie grounde. 1579 Langham Gard. Health (1633) 41 The Mossie barke of an Ash. 1628 W. L[isle] tr. Virg. Bucol. vii. 61 Ye mossy Fountaines [L. muscosi fontes] and yee Hearbs which bee Softer then sleepe. 1665 Boyle Occas. Refl. ii. ii. (1848) 18 To..conjure up wormeaten Carkases out of their Mossy Graves. 1712 Pope Messiah 3 The mossy fountains, and the sylvan shades,..Delight no more. 1818 Shelley Woodman & Nightingale 23 And every bird lulled on its mossy bough. 1875 Mrs. Randolph W. Hyacinth I. 3 The soft mossy turf. 1885–94 R. Bridges Eros & Psyche Oct. iv, Echo, sweet Echo, watching up on high, Say hast thou seen to-day my love go by, Or where thou sittest by thy mossy spring? |
3. Covered with something resembling moss; appearing as if covered with moss; downy, velvety.
| 15.. An Other Balade in Chaucer's Wks. (1561) 344 b, O Mossie Quince hangyng by your stalke. 1573 in Cunningham Revels at Crt. (1842) 58, vj paier of Mossy buskins. 1602 Dolman La Primaud. Fr. Acad. (1618) III. 796 The myrrh which heere wee haue..is blacke, and as if it were scorched, mouldy and mossie on the outside. 1668 Wilkins Real Char. 112 Bearing mossy flowers. 1837 T. Rivers Rose Amateur's Guide 5 The Moss Rose, or Mossy Provence Rose. |
4. Resembling moss; formerly applied to down or young growth of hair.
Cf. mosy a.
| 1579 E. K. Gloss to Spenser's Sheph. Cal. May 187 Young and mossie heares. 1585 Higins tr. Junius' Nomencl. 18 Ephebus..a stripling, that hauing passed 14 yeares, beginneth to haue a mossie beard. 1698 Fryer Acc. E. India & P. 390 His Beard is Cut neatly, and the Whiskers kept in Cases,..not so mossy or slovenly, as either Turkish or Indian Mahometans. 1796 Kirwan Elem. Min. (ed. 2) II. 132 It [sc. malachite] is found either massive, or..mossy. 1861 J. R. Greene Man. Anim. Kingd., Cœlent. 83 The slender mossy threads which compose the connecting stem of smaller species. 1887 D. Maguire Art Massage ii. (ed. 4) 19 The strigil is a bent instrument in the form of a sickle mossy on its edge, and terminating with a handle at one of its extremities, the other rounded off and mossy. |
5. † a. slang or
jocular. Stupid, dull.
Obs.| 1597 Pilgr. Parnass. ii. 168 Woulde anie leaden Mydas, anie mossie patron, have his asses ears deified, let him [etc.]. 1597 1st Pt. Return fr. Parnass. i. i. 110 Mossy idiotts. 1602 2nd Pt. Return fr. Parnass. ii. i. 574 Mossy barbarians the spectators be, That sit and laugh at our calamity. |
b. Extremely conservative or reactionary; old-fashioned, out of date; old.
U.S. slang.| 1904 Collier's 20 Feb. 1 Arthur Lynch's release has the approval of all England except a few peculiarly mossy old Tories. 1932 Amer. Speech VII. 402 That's a mossy hat he wears. 1942 Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Slang §116/6 Old; aged,..mossy. Ibid. §233/12 Old-fashioned,..mossy. |
6. Comb., as
mossy-chinned,
mossy-footed,
mossy-tinctured adjs.;
mossy-back,
-backed a. (see
moss-back),
mossy crêpe = moss crêpe;
mossy-cup oak, the bur-oak,
Quercus macrocarpa;
mossy horn U.S., an old steer; also, an old cowboy;
mossy stonecrop,
Sedum acre (Syd.
Soc. Lex. 1891).
| 1694 Motteux Rabelais iv. xxix. (1737) 119 A *Mossy-chin'd Demy-giant. |
| 1832 Planting 115 (Libr. Usef. Knowl.) The American *mossy-cup oak. |
| 1883 Meredith Woods of Westermain 16 *Mossy-footed squirrels leap, Soft as winnowing plumes of Sleep. |
| 1885 C. A. Siringo Texas Cow Boy viii. 75 They were all old *mossy horn fellows from seven to twenty-seven years old. 1944 R. F. Adams Western Words 101/2 Mossy-horn, a Texas longhorn steer, six or more years old, whose horns have become wrinkled and scaly... The term sometimes is slangily applied to an old cowman. 1955 Foster-Harris Old West viii. 227 Little wrinkles would begin to grow up from the bases of the horns, and the older the steer got, the more the wrinkles would show, giving rise to the term ‘mossy horns’, meaning old-timers. 1973 R. D. Symons Where Wagon Led i. vi. 93 It only takes one ole' mossy-horn to take fright at his own shadder to start the whole lot off. |
| 1728–46 Thomson Spring 381 When..whitening down their *mossy-tinctured stream Descends the billowy foam. |
| 1945 M. D. Potter Fiber to Fabric xii. 239 Mossy crepe,..fabric with texture giving fine moss effect. |