Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A species of hawkweed, Hieracium Pilosella, found throughout Europe and northern Asia. It is a low herb with tufted radical leaves and leafy barren creepers, its heads of lemon-colored flowers borne on leafless scapes. Also called mouse-ear hawkweed.
  • noun One of various species of scorpion-grass or forget-me-not of the genus Myosotis: so called in allusion to their short soft leaves. See Myosotis.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The forget-me-not (Myosotis palustris) and other species of the same genus.
  • noun A European species of hawkweed (Hieracium Pilosella).
  • noun a name of two common species of chickweed (Cerastium vulgarium, and Cerastium viscosum).
  • noun a low cruciferous herb (Sisymbrium Thaliana). All these are low herbs with soft, oval, or obovate leaves, whence the name.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun small perennial herb having bright blue or white flowers
  • noun any of various plants related to the common chickweed

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From mouse + ear.

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Examples

  • "Staring down at the throngs of shoppers ... was a white girl who looked all of 12, reclining in a matching bra-and-panties set adorned with Disney's signature mouse-ear design."

    Top Posts Of The Week - The Consumerist 2008

  • She came to the stream and found it running between blue-flowering mouse-ear and rushes, into a pool which deepened from a sandy shallow: so anon her borrowed raiment was lying on the grassy lip of the water, and she was swimming and disporting her in the pool, with her hair loose and wavering over her white back like some tress of the water-weed.

    The Water of the Wondrous Isles 2007

  • _N_, ripe fruit of mouse-ear chick-weed, _Cerastium_ (_Caryophyllaceæ_), opening by ten teeth at the summit, × 2.

    Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany For High Schools and Elementary College Courses Douglas Houghton Campbell

  • -- The beautiful little moth which flew on your table while you were writing, and which you inclose, resembles the _Deïopeïa bella_, which lives on the mouse-ear of our Northern fields.

    Harper's Young People, March 2, 1880 An Illustrated Weekly Various

  • Hosts of bluets and plots of mouse-ear everlasting, had taken possession of the land.

    The Bay State Monthly — Volume 1, No. 1, January, 1884 Various

  • _Leaves: _ (_Myosotis_ = mouse-ear) oblong, alternate, seated on stem; hairy.

    Wild Flowers Worth Knowing Neltje Blanchan 1891

  • There is an extremely common, though inconspicuous, English weed, the mouse-ear chickweed, found everywhere in flower-beds or grass-plots, however small, and noticeable for its quaint little horn-shaped capsules.

    Science in Arcady Grant Allen 1873

  • On a few hillsides the savory-leaved aster and mouse-ear alone made quite a dense sward, said to be very pretty when the aster is in bloom.

    Cape Cod 1865

  • Birdalone had been to the river and fetched thence store of blue - flowered mouse-ear, and of meadow-sweet, whereof was still some left from the early days of summer, and had made her garlands for her head and her loins; and the knight sat and worshipped her, yet he would not so much as touch her hand, sorely as he hungered for the beauty of her body.

    The Water of the Wondrous Isles William Morris 1865

  • She came to the stream and found it running between blue-flowering mouse-ear and rushes, into a pool which deepened from a sandy shallow: so anon her borrowed raiment was lying on the grassy lip of the water, and she was swimming and disporting her in the pool, with her hair loose and wavering over her white back like some tress of the water-weed.

    The Water of the Wondrous Isles William Morris 1865

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