# lichen
## English
### Etymology

Borrowed from Latin līchēn, from Ancient Greek λειχήν (leikhḗn), from λείχω (leíkhō, “to lick”). Originally used of liverwort; the modern sense first recorded 1715.

### Pronunciation

* enPR: lī'kən, IPA: /ˈlaɪ.kən/
* enPR: lĭ'chən, (also, especially in the UK) IPA: /ˈlɪtʃ.ən/
* Audio (UK):(file)
* Rhymes: -aɪkən, -ɪtʃən
* Homophones: liken, lycan

### Noun

lichen (countable and uncountable, plural lichens or lichen)
* Any of many symbiotic organisms, being associations of algae and fungi, often found as white or yellow-to-blue–green patches on rocks, old walls, etc.
** 1894 May, Rudyard Kipling, “Lukannon”, in The Jungle Book, London, New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., published June 1894, →OCLC, page 122:The Beaches of Lukannon–the winter wheat so tall, / The dripping, crinkled lichens, and the sea-fog drenching all!
** 1895 May 29, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, chapter XI, in The Time Machine: An Invention, London: William Heinemann, →OCLC:It was the same rich green that one sees on forest moss or on the lichen in caves: plants which like these grow in a perpetual twilight.
** 1915, John Muir, chapter V, in Travels in Alaska:The nibble marks of the stone adze were still visible, though crusted over with scale lichens in most places.
* (figurative) Something which gradually spreads across something else, causing damage.
    Synonym: cancer
** 1912 January, Zane Grey, “Shadows on the Sage-slope”, in Riders of the Purple Sage […], New York, N.Y., London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, →OCLC, page 202:Meanwhile, abiding a day of judgment, she fought ceaselessly to deny the bitter drops in her cup, to tear back the slow, the intangibly slow growth of a hot, corrosive lichen eating into her heart.

#### Hyponyms

* (symbiotic organism): macrolichen, microlichen

#### Derived terms

* antilichen
* antler lichen (Evernia cladonia)
* ascolichen (Ascholichenes)
* ball lichen (Sphaerophorus)
* basidolichen (Basidolichenes)
* beard lichen (Usnea barbata)
* blister lichen
* British soldiers lichen (Cladonia cristella)
* byssoid lichen
* cephalolichen
* chlorolichen
* cobblestone lichen (Acarospora)
* coral lichen (Sphaerophorus)
* corticolous lichen
* cracked lichen (Acarospora)
* crustose lichen
* crustose placodioid lichen
* cup lichen (Cladonia spp.)
* cyanolichen
* discolichen (Discolichenes)
* dog lichen (Peltigera canina)
* dust lichen (Chrysothrix or Lepraria spp.)
* earth lichen (esp., Baeomyces)
* edible lichen
* endolithic lichen
* epiphyllous lichen
* equine tropical lichen
* filamentous lichen
* firedot lichen (Caloplaca)
* foliose lichen
* fruticose lichen
* gelatinous lichen (Collemataceae)
* globe lichen
* glyphis lichen (Glyphis spp.)
* gold lichen (Caloplaca)
* goldspeck lichen
* horsehair lichen, horsetail lichen (Alectoria)
* Iceland lichen (Cetraria islandica)
* jelly lichen
* jewel lichen (Caloplaca)
* leaf lichen
* lecanorine lichen
* leprose lichen
* letter lichen (Graphis)
* lichenaceous
* lichenal
* lichened
* lichenic
* lichenicolous
* licheniform
* lichenin
* lichenism
* lichenist
* lichenivorous
* lichenization
* lichenize
* lichenless
* lichenlike
* lichen moth
* lichenographer
* lichenographic
* lichenographical
* lichenographist
* lichenography
* lichenoid
* lichenologist
* lichenology
* lichenometry
* lichenose
* lichenous
* lichen planus
* lichen sclerosus
* licheny
* lung lichen (Sticta pulmonacea)
* macrolichen
* manna lichen (Lecanora spp., Gyrophora esculenta)
* map lichen (Rhizocarpon geographicum)
* orange lichen (Caloplaca)
* pin lichen
* placodioid lichen
* reindeer lichen (Cladonia rangiferina)
* rim lichen (Lecanora, Squamarina)
* saxicolous lichen
* script lichen (Graphis scripta)
* snow lichen (Cetraria nivalis)
* squamulose lichen
* stone lichen
* string-of-sausage lichen
* sunburst lichen (Xanthoria, Xanthoparmelia)
* terricolous lichen
* thrush lichen (Peltigera apthosa)
* tropical lichen
* tube lichen
* vagrant lichen
* Wilson's lichen
* wolf lichen

#### Translations
### Verb

lichen (third-person singular simple present lichens, present participle lichening, simple past and past participle lichened)
* (transitive) To cover with lichen.
** 1903, J. Gordon Mowat, John Alexander Cooper, Newton MacTavish, The Canadian Magazine (volume 21, page 37)
    […] making the rocks assume the mould of age and lichening the trees with damp beauty.

### See also

* lichen on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
* algae
* fungus
* Iceland moss
* moss
* reindeer moss

### References

* 1 2 “lichen”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
* 1 2 “lichen”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.
* 1 2 “lichen”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

## French
### Etymology

Borrowed from Latin lichen, from Ancient Greek λειχήν (leikhḗn).

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /li.kɛn/
* Audio:(file)

### Noun

lichen m (plural lichens)
* lichen

#### Derived terms

* lichen plan
* lichénique

### Further reading

* “lichen”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

### Anagrams

* chelin

## Latin
### Etymology

Borrowed from Ancient Greek λειχήν (leikhḗn).

### Pronunciation

* (Classical Latin) IPA: /ˈliː.kʰeːn/, [ˈlʲiːkʰeːn]
* (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA: /ˈli.ken/, [ˈliːken]

### Noun

līchēn m (genitive līchēnos or līchēnis); third declension
* (literally) a cryptogamic species of vegetation growing on trees, lichen
* (transferred sense, medicine) an eruption on the skin of men and beasts, a tetter, ringworm
** (and especially) a callous excrescence upon the leg of a horse, used as a medicine

#### Declension

Third-declension noun (Greek-type, normal variant or non-Greek-type).

#### Derived terms

* līchēnifōrmis

#### Related terms

* līchēna
* līchēnicos

#### Descendants

* English: lichen
* French: lichen
* Irish: léicean
* Italian: lichene
* Portuguese: líquen
* Romanian: lichen
* Spanish: liquen

### References

* “līchēn”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
* līchēn in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette, page 909/3.
* “līchēn” on page 1,029/1 of the Oxford Latin Dictionary (1st ed., 1968–82)

## Luxembourgish
### Verb

lichen (third-person singular present licht, past participle gelicht, auxiliary verb hunn)
* (transitive, slang) to kick out, to throw out, to sack

#### Synonyms

* erausgeheien
* lanteren
* schassen
* (transitive) to lift (a little)
* (reflexive, slang) to get up, to leave (as a guest), to get to one's feet
* (reflexive) to lift (fog, mist)

#### Synonyms

* sech hiewen

## Romanian
### Etymology

Borrowed from French lichen.

### Noun

lichen m (plural licheni)
* lichen