leafy, a.
(liːfɪ)
(See also leavy.)
[f. leaf n.1 + -y1.]
1. Having, or abounding in, leaves; clothed with leaves or foliage; made or consisting of leaves.
| 1552 Huloet, Leaffy, or ful of leaues. 1697 Dryden Virg. Georg. i. 491 Soft Whispers run along the leafy Woods. ― Virg. Past. vii. 7 Ye Trees, whose leafy Shades those mossy Fountains keep. 1725 Pope Odyss. xi. 235 Autumn..The leafy honours scattering on the ground. 1798 Coleridge Anc. Mar. v. xviii, In the leafy month of June. 1817 Moore Lalla R. Pref. (1850) 8 Stranger, spread Thy leafiest bed. 1864 Tennyson En. Ard. 97 The leafy lanes behind the down. 1893 N. Gale Country Muse Ser. ii. 101 In leafy Warwickshire. |
b. spec. in Bot. Foliate.
| 1776 J. Lee Introd. Bot. Explan. Terms 379 Foliatus, leafy, furnished with Leaves. 1870 Hooker Stud. Flora 115 Flowering stems 3–5 in., lateral, ascending, leafy. |
c. That produces broad-bladed leaves, as distinguished from other kinds of foliage.
| 1879 D. M. Wallace Australas. xi. 222 We have many Indian genera of leafy trees, very different from the usual Australian type. |
2. Of the nature of a leaf; resembling a leaf. a. Said of the parts of a plant.
| 1671 Grew Anat. Plants i. iv. §17 (1682) 32 Every bud, besides its proper Leaves, is covered with divers Leafy Pannicles or Surfoyls. 1727 Bradley Fam. Dict. s.v Elm, It bears a single leav'd Flower..which turns to a membranous or leafy Fruit in the Form of a Heart. 1847 W. E. Steele Field Bot. 30 Cal. of 5 leafy teeth. 1851 Carpenter Man. Phys. (ed. 2) 466 They may form..fronds (expanded leafy surfaces). |
b. Of other substances: Laminate.
| 1754 Lewis in Phil. Trans. XLVIII. 668 A leafy or fibrous texture, a purplish colour..are peculiar to the mixtures with lead. 1791 Pearson ibid. LXXXI. 324 A..leafy, or mica-like sediment. 1881 Borings II. 26 (E.D.D.) Leafy clay with scares of sand. |
3. Comb., as leafy-branched adj.
| 1837 Macgillivray Withering's Brit. Plants (ed. 4) 340 Leafy-branched Spurge. |