Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Lichen
/ˈlaɪkən/noun
A crusty or leafy organism formed by a fungus and an alga living as one.
The Greek roots
λειχήν
leichḗn
tree moss, skin eruption
Literally: “licker”
Follow a root:λειχήν1 word
The story of the word
λειχήν comes from λείχειν, to lick, either because the growth seems to lap at the rock or because the rock looks licked over. Greek applied the word to crusts on stone and to scaly eruptions on skin without much distinction, and medicine kept the second sense, which is why lichen planus is a rash and not a plant. The organism is not a plant either: Simon Schwendener proposed in 1867 that a lichen was a fungus farming an alga, and was ridiculed for it for years.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 1600s
Same family
licklichenology
In a sentence
Lichen had taken the north face of every headstone.
Crustose lichen grows about a millimetre a year, which makes it a clock.