LICHEN

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does lichen mean? 

• LICHEN (noun)
  The noun LICHEN has 2 senses:

1. any of several eruptive skin diseases characterized by hard thick lesions grouped together and resembling lichens growing on rocks

2. any thallophytic plant of the division Lichenes; occur as crusty patches or bushy growths on tree trunks or rocks or bare ground etc.

  Familiarity information: LICHEN used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LICHEN (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Any of several eruptive skin diseases characterized by hard thick lesions grouped together and resembling lichens growing on rocks

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Hypernyms ("lichen" is a kind of...):

disease of the skin; skin disease; skin disorder (a disease affecting the skin)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "lichen"):

lichen planus; lichen ruber planus (an eruption of shiny flat-topped purplish (usually itchy) papules on the wrist and forearms and thighs)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Any thallophytic plant of the division Lichenes; occur as crusty patches or bushy growths on tree trunks or rocks or bare ground etc.

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Hypernyms ("lichen" is a kind of...):

fungus (an organism of the kingdom Fungi lacking chlorophyll and feeding on organic matter; ranging from unicellular or multicellular organisms to spore-bearing syncytia)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "lichen"):

ascolichen (a lichen in which the fungus component is an ascomycete)

basidiolichen (a lichen in which the fungus component is a basidiomycete)

lecanora (any lichen of the genus Lecanora; some used in dyeing; some used for food)

roccella; Roccella tinctoria (a source of the dye archil and of litmus)

beard lichen; beard moss; Usnea barbata (greenish grey pendulous lichen growing on trees)

horsehair lichen; horsetail lichen (any of several lichens of the genus Alectoria having a thallus consisting of filaments resembling hair)

arctic moss; Cladonia rangiferina; reindeer lichen; reindeer moss (an erect greyish branching lichen of Arctic and even some north temperate regions constituting the chief food for reindeer and caribou and sometimes being eaten by humans)

crotal; crottal; crottle (any of several lichens of the genus Parmelia from which reddish brown or purple dyes are made)

Cetraria islandica; Iceland lichen; Iceland moss (lichen with branched flattened partly erect thallus that grows in mountainous and Arctic regions; used as a medicine or food for humans and livestock; a source of glycerol)

Holonyms ("lichen" is a member of...):

division Lichenes; Lichenes (comprising the lichens which grow symbiotically with algae; sometimes treated as an independent group more or less coordinate with algae and fungi)

 Context examples 

They showed those lichens can also survive and even grow in Mars simulation chambers.

(Simple animals could live in Martian brines, Wikinews)

It clings to the mind when it has once seized on it like a lichen on the rock.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Limestone surfaces are also more likely to harbor lichens — symbiotic communities composed of fungi and photosynthesizing cyanobacteria or algae.

(Tales from the crypt: Life after death in a graveyard, National Science Foundation)

It was a widespread, comfortable-looking building, two-storied, slate-roofed, with great yellow blotches of lichen upon the grey walls.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

One funnel-shaped depression in the morass, of a livid green in color from some lichen which festered in it, will always remain as a nightmare memory in my mind.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Occurs in plants, algae, cyanobacteria and lichens.

(Photosynthesis, NCI Thesaurus)

The lichens can do this because their algal component is able to produce the oxygen needed by the fungal component.

(Simple animals could live in Martian brines, Wikinews)

Vivid orchids and wonderful colored lichens smoldered upon the swarthy tree-trunks and where a wandering shaft of light fell full upon the golden allamanda, the scarlet star-clusters of the tacsonia, or the rich deep blue of ipomaea, the effect was as a dream of fairyland.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In 2014, also suggesting multicellular life could exist on Mars, they studied some lichens, including Pleopsidium chlorophanum, which can grow high up in Antarctic mountain ranges.

(Simple animals could live in Martian brines, Wikinews)