Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Nautical A curved, scroll-like ornamentation at the top of a ship's bow that resembles the neck of a violin.
- n. Botany The coiled young frond of any of various ferns, some of which are considered a delicacy when cooked. Also called crosier.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Nautical, an ornament at the bow of a ship, over the cutwater, consisting of carved work in the form of volute or scroll, resembling somewhat that at the head of a violin.
- n. plural The crozier-like uncoiling young fronds of the cinnamon-fern, Osmunda cinnamomea: so named from their fancied resemblance to the carved head of a violin.
Wiktionary
- n. The scroll-shaped decoration at the tip of a fiddle.
- n. The furled fronds of a young fern harvested for food consumption.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. See fiddle head in the vocabulary.
- n. any of several tall ferns of northern temperate regions having graceful arched fronds and sporophylls resembling ostrich plumes.
- n. New World fern (Osmunda cinnamonea) having woolly cinnamon-colored spore-bearing fronds in early spring later surrounded by green fronds, called also
fiddlehead fern ; the early uncurling fronds are edible, and sometimes considered as a vegetable delicacy. - n. (Naut.) an ornament on a ship's bow, curved like the volute or scroll at the head of a violin. Sometimes it serves the function of a billhead.
WordNet 3.0
- n. New World fern having woolly cinnamon-colored spore-bearing fronds in early spring later surrounded by green fronds; the early uncurling fronds are edible
- n. tall fern of northern temperate regions having graceful arched fronds and sporophylls resembling ostrich plumes
Etymologies
- fiddle + head (Wiktionary)
Examples
“In early spring, they start to rise from the ground, in small, tightly curled formations that resemble the shape of a snail shell -- or as it's name fiddlehead suggests, the spiral end of a fiddle.”
“But that's probably also because it runs a lot of sites: Gilt Home, Gilt Man, Gilt City, Jetsetter for travel and Gilt Taste, which as of last check was selling whole Dungeness crabs, gluten-free carrot cake cookies, fiddlehead ferns and finger limes.”
The Wall Street Journal: Gilt's Flashy Dinner for Fashionable Men
“Also in its startling repertoire are foraged wild mushrooms, a beefsteak tomato carved tableside, fiddlehead ferns, acid-tinged calamondin oranges today called calamansi, and those now ubiquitous but then obscure cherry tomatoes and snow peas.”
The Huffington Post: Rozanne Gold: Joe Baum's Nasturtiums: A Tribute
“For those adventurous eaters (at least in my book), here is a collection of fiddlehead recipes.”
How cute are these fiddleheads?? « Sugar Creek Gardens’ Blog
“Andy Ricker, who won the 2011 James Beard award for best chef in the Northwest, shops the stalls of Hmong farmers at his Portland, Oregon, market to find fiddlehead ferns, vegetables like "phak khanaa" or Chinese broccoli, exotic, untranslatable herbs and crucial ingredients like cilantro root for the innovative Asian cuisine he turns out at his restaurant Pok Pok.”
“His fricassee of snails contains the spicy Japanese condiment red yuzu kosho, local fiddlehead ferns and resinous Greek mastic infused with English peas.”
“Ramps are usually the first wild food to be harvested by foragers out of the forest, followed by morels, fiddlehead ferns (small, unfurled edible ferns, whose green beans-meets-asparagus flavor is a love-it-or-hate-it proposition) and nettles.”
“This lovely inn is on the National Register of Historic Places (operating since 1810) and puts on a classic brunch buffet with items like shrimp cocktail, prime rib roast, brined roasted turkey and marinated fiddlehead ferns.”
The Huffington Post: One For The Table: Our Favorite Mother's Day Brunches
“Also had a great frittata with fiddlehead ferns at Aurora the other night.”
“That I deserved to spread out if I wanted to, even though I have always slept curled on my side like a fiddlehead fern.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘fiddlehead’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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A Galimafrée of Plant Anatomy & Morph...
A hodgepodge, jumble, jambalaya, *gallimaufry, circus and tent revival of plant anatomy and morphology terms and phrases - its a big tent, and no tickets are required.
*array, collecti...naked bud, leaf blade, brochidodromous, serrate, cork cambium, rhizomatous, flower stalk, deciduous sepal, petal, whorl, nectar gland, stamen and 1348 more...
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food collection
bread, peel, pot, chorizo, Filet, olive, fill, Phyllo, dough, bake, mat, pinot and 988 more...
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Flora
fenugreek, verbena, saxifrage, arbutus, calendula, nasturtium, lobelia, hellebore, rhododendron, philodendron, bellflower, heuchera and 449 more...
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Maineisms
Some of these were taken from older literature and have fallen out of use in the past few decades, but many are still used today in the same way they were used a century ago. By no means a compreh...
Yankeedom, wizzled, wing and wing, wickie-up, whiffletree, weewaw, wangan, wainy, upstair, twice-laid, tunket, trig and 136 more...
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Hedgepiglet
Words for things both tangible and nonanthropic
rorqual, vellus, wrasse, rainbow bee-eater, tinkershire, lemonquat, boomslang, tufted vetch, cubeb, nipplefruit, madapple, wad and 447 more...
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Amusing words
interesting words
bonce, furcate, tapioca, tillage, desalinate, garish, litmus, roadhog, azoic, haberdasher, imbroglio, polliwog and 802 more...
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persnickety parlance
behoove, ebullient, insouciant, insipient, froth, quandary, quixotic, tendril, maktub, furrow, furl, anastrophe and 1076 more...
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compounds
blatherskite, buckskin, fishmonger, hoarfrost, applesauce, moonshine, fiddlehead, snickerdoodle, lodestar, lifeblood, brainchild, starry-eyed and 17 more...
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Blue remembered hills
Flora, fauna and other things common in the time and place where I grew up
millipede, dock leaf, snowdrop, nettle, ragwort, oxeye, moss, bindweed, lichen, hay, forget-me-not, bluebell and 62 more...
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veggies
rutabaga, collards, broccoli, carrot, turnip, potato, tomato, kale, cabbage, bok choy, komatsuna, amaranth and 25 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for fiddlehead.
reesetee Beautiful work, John! You must be thrilled with those cabinets. :-) Oct 18, 2007
yarb Delicious w/ butter. Oct 18, 2007
john And of Northeast tribes, too. Available each spring in Maine supermarkets.
Also, the workshop of the guy who built our kitchen cabinets :-) Oct 18, 2007
skipvia A staple food of Northwest tribes--very young fern fronds still curled into the shape of a...ummm...fiddlehead. Delicious sautéed or steamed. Oct 18, 2007