Lovegrasses

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Ornamental or forage grasses belonging to the genus Eragrostis, native to warm regions and valued for their feathery seed heads
2. A group of grasses in the genus Eragrostis, characterized by delicate, airy panicles and commonly grown as decorative or livestock feed plants
3. Grasses of the genus Eragrostis, known for their fine, wispy flowering structures and widespread use in gardens and pastures

Etymology: Lovegrasses is the plural of "lovegrass," a name for grasses of the genus Eragrostis, which contains several hundred species. The singular is a compound of "love," in the sense of the tiny seeds' gentle, almost lovelike, sense of softness, and "grass." The name is a plain English compound, and the plural simply follows the usual pattern of adding "-es" to a word ending in "s."