hornwort
hornwort noun: any of certain bryophytes, of phylum Anthocerotophyta, with a leafless thallus characterized by a dominant gametophyte stage of the life cycle and a sporophyte stage shaped like a horn.

Noun
hornwort (plural hornworts)
- Any of certain bryophytes, of phylum Anthocerotophyta, with a leafless thallus characterized by a dominant gametophyte stage of the life cycle and a sporophyte stage shaped like a horn.
- An aquatic flowering plant in the genus Ceratophyllum
- Synonyms:
- coontail
- Vernal grasses (Anthoxanthum spp.).
Synonyms of hornwort
Forms of hornwort
| plural | hornworts |
|---|
Origin of hornwort
From horn + wort (“plant”), from the fact that the spores are produced in slender horn-shaped structures.
Words formed from hornwort
Questions about hornwort
- What does hornwort mean?
- Hornwort means any of certain bryophytes, of phylum Anthocerotophyta, with a leafless thallus characterized by a dominant gametophyte stage of the life cycle and a sporophyte stage shaped like a horn.
- What part of speech is hornwort?
- Hornwort is a noun.
- What is the plural of hornwort?
- The plural of hornwort is hornworts.
Words near hornwort in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: hornwort (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:
Cite this entry: “hornwort.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hornwort. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
