fern

Etymology

From Middle English fern, from Old English fearn, from Proto-West Germanic *farn, from Proto-Indo-European *pornóm (“feather, wing; fern, leaf”), from *p(t)erH- (“fern”). Cognate with West Frisian fear, Dutch varen, German Farn, Lithuanian spar̃nas, Avestan 𐬞𐬀𐬭𐬆𐬥𐬀 (par^əna), Ashkun pā́r, Kamkata-viri pór, Sanskrit पर्ण (parṇá).

noun

1. Any of a group of some twenty thousand species of vascular plants classified in the division Pteridophyta that lack seeds and reproduce by shedding spores to initiate an alternation of generations.