Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Same as frogspit.
  • noun A fungus, Leuconostoc mesenterioides, allied to the bacteria, which causes serious loss to sugar-manufacturers on the European continent by converting saccharine solutions into a mass of slime.

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • Well, if the little scrap wanted to volunteer for all this leaping about and frog-spawn collecting, who was I to gainsay him?

    Black Butterfly Mark Gatiss 2008

  • He had pictured someting much more rudimentary; a mere blob with a nucleus, like a bubble of frog-spawn.

    George Orwell, writing against abortion Suzanne 2006

  • For in my sick distracted mind (stirred with many tossings), like the bead in the spread of frog-spawn carried by the current, hung the black and central essence of my future life.

    Lorna Doone Richard Doddridge 2004

  • Whereupon here comes His Highness's frog-spawn, O'Sullivan-pest!

    Dragonfly in Amber Gabaldon, Diana 1992

  • '' I got some early frog-spawn in the spring, 'said Pat,' and I got heaps of tadpoles from it.

    Summer Term At St Clare's Blyton, Enid, 1898?-1968 1967

  • This alga is also attached to stones and floats out with the current sometimes two feet in length; and, like the frog-spawn alga, is fond of pure water, but I have often kept the _Cladophora_ alive in perfect health in an aquarium for weeks together.

    Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children W. Houghton

  • The frog-spawn alga, therefore, will not thrive in any but the purest water, and a gentle flow is necessary to its growth and health.

    Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children W. Houghton

  • It consists of a number of delicate branches, each arranged in a bead-like row, and from a certain resemblance which these beaded rows bear to frog-spawn, as well as from their jelly-like consistency, this alga has received the name of _Batrachospermum_, which means "frogs 'spawn."

    Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children W. Houghton

  • There are long, dismal flats where in the spring the clotted frog-spawn clings like patches of white mucus among the weed stalks and at night the turtles crawl out to lay clutches of perfectly round, white eggs with tough, rubbery shells in the sand.

    The Escape of Mr. Trimm His Plight and other Plights 1910

  • 'Hi! you young frog-spawn,' he says, 'out of my road,' and startled the lad.

    Lore of Proserpine Maurice Hewlett 1892

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