Greenleaf

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A leaf that has retained its green color, especially one still fresh and living on a plant
2. A living leaf showing the green pigment of chlorophyll, as opposed to one that has withered or turned brown
3. Any fresh, unwithered leaf on a plant whose surface still displays its characteristic green hue

Etymology: Greenleaf joins two native English words: "grēne," meaning the colour of growing plants, and "lēaf," meaning the flat organ that grows from a plant's stem. Both come from Old English and share Germanic roots with their cognates in German and Dutch ("grün," "loof" in older forms). The compound describes a leaf that is green, either in colour or because it is still living and fresh, as opposed to one that has dried, yellowed, or fallen. The pairing is an ordinary English formation of descriptive adjective plus noun, so it has no single coiner or first recorded use worth singling out. Its parts have been in the language for over a thousand years, and the compound itself is transparent enough that readers can work out the meaning without a dictionary.