Lichenose

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Covered with lichens or having the crusty, mosslike growth characteristic of lichen
2. Resembling lichen in appearance, especially in forming a crusty or scaly covering on rocks or bark
3. Describing a surface overgrown with lichen, or one that looks like the flat, crust-forming plant

Etymology: "Lichenose" is built from "lichen," the name for the crusty, mat-forming organisms that grow on rocks, bark and old walls, and the suffix "-ose," which means "full of" or "abounding in," as in "verbose" or "bellicose." Put together, the word describes a surface covered with lichen or with a lichen-like crust. The word sits alongside "lichenous," which has the same meaning and is built on the same root, so the two are doublets: separate English forms that arrived by different routes from the same source. Where "lichenous" follows the familiar pattern of the adjective-forming ending "-ous," "lichenose" takes the Latin-derived "-ose" instead. Both forms are rare, and they show how English speakers, when describing natural objects, could draw on two different suffixes for the same idea.

Synonyms: lichenous