Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Any of several American evergreen oaks, such as Quercus virginiana of Mexico and the southeast United States or Q. agrifolia of California. Also called encina.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. An American oak, Quercus virens. It is abundant, within short distances of the coast, from southern Virginia to Texas, extending into Mexico, and is also found in Costa Rica. It is a slow-growing evergreen, 50 or 60 feet high. The leaves are commonly entire, with the upper side smooth and shining. Its wood is extremely heavy, hard, strong, fine-grained, and durable, and of great economic value, being especially prized for ship-building. The name is also applied to several other evergreen species of the Pacific slope: Q. chrysolepis, also called
maul-oak and Valparaiso oak; the less important Q. Wislizeni; and the coast live-oak, Q. agrifolia, also calledencino , alarge tree of southern California.
Wiktionary
- n. An evergreen species of oak characteristic of the US South, the southern live oak, Quercus virginiana
- n. Any of several other species of oak with evergreen, usually holly-like leaves
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. (Bot.) a species of oak (Quercus virens), growing in the Southern States, of great durability, and highly esteemed for ship timber. In California the Quercus chrysolepis and some other species are also called
live oaks .
WordNet 3.0
- n. any of several American evergreen oaks
Examples
“The back of his shirt was peppered with sweat by midday, and while the blacks ate their sandwiches of company-store balogna and potted meat in a grove of gum trees, he tethered his horse under a solitary live oak in the middle of a pepper field and sat in a folding chair a black man hand-carried to him for that purpose.”
“He paused in the shade of a live oak in front of the old Trappey’s bottling plant and wiped his face, then continued on to the McDonald’s, took his sack lunch and a thermos out of his suitcase, and began eating at a stone table, outside, under the trees.”
“He said that he'd gone to check on Jack and that Jack was fine, albeit naked and chilly and sitting near the top of a live oak tree in front of Halle's cabin.”
“He was sitting halfway up a live oak just west of Halle's cabin, waiting.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘live oak’.
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Words Covered in Faery Dust (L)
words that evoke magic, mystery, mayhem, magnificence or anything else that glimmers in the grass
labyrinth, lace, lad, lady fingers, lagoon, lamb, lament, lammas, lantern, larkspur, lass, lauds and 92 more...
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Stately Plants
The flowers and trees of states and nations.
camellia, forget-me-not, saguaro cactus, apple blossom, Calafornia poppy, Rocky Mountain, mountain laurel, peach blossom, American beauty rose, orange blossom, Cherokee rose, pua aloalo and 210 more...
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The Octopus
Words gleaned from Frank Norris's 1901 novel The Octopus
deerhound, diapason, thitherward, chitter, unsteady, wiper, overspire, inanition, sheen, hiccough, quirt, broncho and 44 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for live oak.
hernesheir The southern live oak, Quercus virginiana, was also known as the "rocket tree". Apr 27, 2010
yarb Citation on arroyo. Aug 26, 2008
treeseed Live oak or evergreen oak is a general term for a number of unrelated oaks in several different sections of the genus Quercus that happen to share the character of evergreen foliage.
The name live oak comes from the fact that evergreen oaks are still green and "live" in winter, when other oaks are dormant, leafless and "dead"-looking. The name is used mainly in North America, where evergreen oaks are widespread in warmer areas, along the Atlantic coast from Virginia to Florida, west along the Gulf Coast to Texas and across the southwest to California and southwest Oregon.
When the term live oak is used in a specific rather than general sense, it most commonly refers to the Southern live oak (the first species so named), but can often refer to other species regionally.
_Wikipedia Feb 17, 2008