Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The down on certain seeds, as the cotton.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • High, high, he rose, until he circled among the clouds, small-seeming and swift, like seed-down in a whirlwind.

    Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest Katharine Berry [Editor] Judson

  • If it does, we shall have to harvest a thistle-crop of tribal and intertribal trouble throughout the Arabian peninsula, and the seed-down of unrest will blow all over Syria and

    Pan-Islam

  • _ -- The portions of the plant used are the lowest parts of the leaves, or scales, of the calyx; and also the fleshy receptacles of the flower, freed from the bristles and seed-down.

    The Field and Garden Vegetables of America Containing Full Descriptions of Nearly Eleven Hundred Species and Varietes; With Directions for Propagation, Culture and Use. Fearing Burr

  • It builds in a low thorny shrub, about 1½ feet from the ground, makes a largish globular nest of thin dry grass-stems, with an opening in the side, thickly lined with seed-down, and containing four or five eggs.

    The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 Allan Octavian Hume 1870

  • Several nests were obtained in May and June; these were large cup-shaped structures, composed of grass-roots, fibres, and fine seed-down intermixed.

    The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 Allan Octavian Hume 1870

  • The material used appears to be always much the same -- fine grass-stems intermingled with blades of grass, and here and there dry leaves of some rush, a little seed-down, scraps of herbaceous plants, and the like; the interior, always of the finest grass-stems, neatly arranged and curved to the shape of the cavity.

    The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 Allan Octavian Hume 1870

  • The locality of the nest is exactly that described by Mr. Anderson; it is oval in shape, with a large side entrance near the top; it is built of fine grass and seed-down, no cobweb being employed in the structure; it is loosely made, and there are always a few feathers in the egg-cavity.

    The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 Allan Octavian Hume 1870

  • The nest is, for the size of the bird, a large watch-pocket, some 6 inches in total length and 3·5 in breadth, composed entirely of white, satiny seed-down, densely felted together to the thickness of half an inch.

    The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 Allan Octavian Hume 1870

  • It was composed of the dry stalks of 'forget-me-not,' compactly held together by the intermixture of a quantity of moss interwoven with fine flax and seed-down, and lined with fine grass-stalks.

    The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 Allan Octavian Hume 1870

  • It is composed of fine dry grasses, both blade and stalk, intermixed with silky and cottony seed-down, especially at that part where the materials are wound round the two supporting twigs; and in the specimen before me there are several small silky cocoons of a diminutive _Bombyx_ attached to the outside, the silk of which has been interwoven with the fibres of the external nest.

    The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 Allan Octavian Hume 1870

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