fern

UK/fɜːn//fɝn/

fern noun: 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.

Image: W.carter, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

fern (plural ferns)

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.
- Beyond here the tides are not felt, and we now entered upon a district of elevated forest, with a finer vegetation. Large trees stretch out their arms across the stream, and the steep, earthy banks are clothed with ferns and zingiberaceous plants.1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume I, London: Macmillan and Co., page 103
Synonyms:

Filicophyta
(broadly) A light green color inspired by the color of ferns.

Proper noun capitalized: Fern

Fern (plural Ferns)

A female given name.
- "Charlotte is the best storyteller I ever heard," said Fern, poking her dish towel into a cereal bowl.1952, E. B. White, Charlotte's Web
- Her death was confirmed by her daughter, Rachel Fern Harris.2009 November 24, Bruce Weber, “Charis Wilson, Model and Muse, Dies at 95”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 03 Jul 2011
A topographic surname.

fern meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Bengali and Malayalam

fern in Hindi

plant: फर्न pharn

fern in Tamil

பரணி என்ற செடிவகை

fern in Bengali

plant: ফার্ন pharno

fern in Malayalam

plant: പന്നൽ pannal

More languagesFewer languages

fern in Kannada: ಜರೀಗಿಡ
fern in Assamese: ঢেকীয়া dhekia
fern in Tagalog: pako
fern in Arabic: سَرْخَس sarḵas
fern in Malay: paku
fern in Indonesian: paku
fern in Persian: سرخس saraxs
fern in Thai: เฟิร์น fəən
fern in Vietnamese: dương xỉ
fern in Myanmar: ဒရင်ကောက်ပင် du da.rangkaukpang

Examples of fern in a sentence

Ferns, lycopods, and scouring rushes are all pteridophytes.
Superstition held that fern seed renders one invisible.
Many ferns are epipetric, including the spleenworts.

All 40 example sentences with fern

Synonyms of fern

Filicophyta

Forms of fern

Noun
plural	ferns
Proper noun
plural	Ferns

Plural of fern: ferns

Origin of fern

From Middle English fern, from Old English fearn, from Proto-West Germanic *farn, from Proto-Germanic *farnaz (“fern”), from Proto-Indo-European *pornóm (“feather, wing; fern, leaf”), from *p(t)erH- (“fern”). Cognates Cognate with Scots fairn (“fern”), North Frisian farne (“fern”), West Frisian fear (“fern”), Dutch varen (“fern”), German Farn, Farm (“fern”), Luxembourgish Far (“fern”); also Breton raden (“fern”), Cornish reden (“ferns; brackens”), Welsh rhedyn (“ferns; brackens”), Latvian paparde (“fern; bracken”), spārns (“wing”), Lithuanian spar̃nas (“wing”), Bulgarian and Macedonian папрат (paprat, “fern”), Czech kapraď (“fern”), Polish paproć (“fern”), Russian па́пороть (páporotʹ), па́поротник (páporotnik, “fern”), Serbo-Croatian па̏пра̄т, pȁprāt (“fern”), Slovak papraď (“fern”), Slovene praprot (“fern”), Ukrainian па́пороть (páporotʹ, “fern”), Central Kurdish پەڕ (perr, “feather”), Persian پر (par, “feather; wing; leaf”), Ashkun pār (“leaf”), Kamkata-viri por, přor (“leaf”), Prasuni parëg (“leaf”), Sanskrit पर्ण (parṇá, “wing; leaf”).

From fern; in the case of the surname, it was given to someone who lived in a place where there was an abundance of these plants.

Words formed from fern

Phrases with fern

54 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with fern

28 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about fern

What does fern mean?: Fern means 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.
What is fern in Hindi?: Fern in Hindi is फर्न (pharn). See Fern meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is fern?: Fern can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce fern?: Fern is pronounced /fɜːn/ (UK).
What is the plural of fern?: The plural of fern is ferns.

Words near fern in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: fern (page history and authors); Fern (page history and authors); fern (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); fern (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-fern.ogg.

Cite this entry: “fern.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fern. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.