Showing posts with label lichen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lichen. Show all posts

Thursday, February 27, 2014

liken, lichen

Liken or liken is an informal word meaning to compare, or to see a similarity to someone or something--
It's not a good idea to liken her to her sister--she thinks they don't even look alike.
He gets annoyed if we liken his music to something we've heard on the radio.

Lichen or lichen ( rhymes with liken ) means a small plant, something like a fungus or an alga, that grows on trees or rocks the way moss does--
He painted several studies, trying to show the colors of the lichen on the rocks.
That looks like a green and yellow hill from a distance, but it's really a large rock covered in lichen.

Now that you know that, you can say--
"If I could write a poem, I would liken the yellow lichen on the rocks to a bouquet of flowers."