ivy

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of several woody, climbing or trailing evergreen plants of the genus Hedera native to the Old World, especially H. helix, having palmately lobed leaves, root-bearing young stems, and small green flowers grouped in umbels.
2. n. Informal A university in the Ivy League. Often used in the plural: Cornell is one of the Ivies.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. An epiphytic climbing plant of the genus Hedera (H. Helix), natural order Araliaceæ, and the type of series Hedereæ. The leaves are smooth and shining, varying much in form, from oval entire to 3- and 5-lobed; and their perpetual verdure gives the plant a beautiful appearance. The flowers are greenish and inconspicuous, disposed in globose umbels, and are succeeded by deepgreen or almost black berries. H. Helix (the common ivy) is found throughout almost the whole of Europe, and in many parts of Asia and Africa. It is plentiful in Great Britain, growing in hedges and woods, and on old buildings, rocks, and trunks of trees. A variety called the Irish ivy is much cultivated on account of the large size of its foliage and its very rapid growth. The ivy attains a great age, the stem ultimately becoming several inches thick and capable of supporting the weight of the plant. The wood is soft and porous, and when cut into very thin plates is used for filtering liquids. In Switzerland and the south of Europe it is employed for making various useful articles. The ivy has been celebrated from remote antiquity, and was held sacred in some countries, as Greece and Egypt.
2. n. Ground-pine: chiefly in the compound herb-ivy.
3. n. In Australia, the cultivated varieties of Pelargonium peltatum, commonly known as ivy-leaved geraniums, which are there trained over fences and walls, sometimes to a height of 20 or 30 feet, supplanting the English or common ivy in this use. See ivy-leaved geranium.
4. n. The Macquarie Harbor grape, Calacinum adpressum.
5. n. The naturalized Cape or German ivy, Senecio mikanioides. See Senecio, 1.
6. To cover with ivy.

Wiktionary

1. n. Any of several woody, climbing, or trailing evergreen plants of the genus Hedera.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Bot.) A plant of the genus Hedera (Hedera helix), common in Europe. Its leaves are evergreen, dark, smooth, shining, and mostly five-pointed; the flowers yellowish and small; the berries black or yellow. The stem clings to walls and trees by rootlike fibers.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. Old World vine with lobed evergreen leaves and black berrylike fruits