Other forms: brackens
Bracken is a coarse fern that grows thickly on open ground. Waist-high bracken, cut the bracken, push through the bracken.
It spreads by underground stems and shades out everything else, which makes it a serious problem on hillsides that were once grazed. It is one of the few plants that is genuinely carcinogenic, and the ticks that carry Lyme disease shelter in it.
1nounbrackenA coarse fern that grows thickly on open ground.
“We pushed our way through waist-high bracken on the hillside.”
bracken is a plant.
Middle English braken, probably from Old Norse brakni, undergrowth.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰreg- — to break
Proto-Germanic
*brekaną
Old Norse
*brakni — undergrowth
Middle English
braken
English, today
bracken
From Middle English braken, probably of Scandinavian/gmq - origin, from Old Norse brakni (“undergrowth”), related to Proto-Germanic brekaną and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European bʰreg- (“to break”). Cognates include Danish bregne and Swedish bräken (“fern”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA