Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A place or container in which ferns are grown.
  • noun A bed or collection of ferns.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A place where ferns are artificially grown; a plantation of ferns.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A place for rearing ferns.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A specialized garden for the cultivation and display of ferns.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

fern +‎ -ery

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Examples

  • The fernery was a huge glass building on one side of the ballroom, filled with Australian and New Zealand ferns, and having

    Madame Midas 2003

  • The fernery was a huge glass building on one side of the ballroom, filled with Australian and New Zealand ferns, and having a large fountain in the centre sending up a sparkling jet of water, which fell into the shallow stone basin filled with water lilies and their pure white flowers.

    Madame Midas Fergus Hume 1895

  • Half a mile from the start, or thereabouts, the path skirts what I should call the fernery; a circular space, perhaps one hundred and fifty feet in diameter, set in the midst of the primeval forest, but itself containing no tree or shrub of any sort, -- nothing but one dense mass of ferns.

    Birds in the Bush Bradford Torrey 1877

  • Along the foot trail which led down the side of the big canon to the intake of the water-pipe, they established their fernery.

    Chapter XXV 2010

  • In the rose garden, which had taken the place of the old fernery, he could see Irene snipping and pruning, with a little basket on her arm.

    To Let 2004

  • The old dog got off his haunches, and his tail, close-curled over his back, began a feeble, excited fluttering; he came waddling forward, gathered momentum, and disappeared over the edge of the fernery.

    In Chancery 2004

  • Slowly, as was their wont, they crossed among the constellations of buttercups and daisies, and entered the fernery.

    Indian Summer of a Forsyte 2004

  • Up on the lawn above the fernery he could see his old dog Balthasar.

    In Chancery 2004

  • He would see her when she emerged from the fernery, come swaying just a little,

    Indian Summer of a Forsyte 2004

  • Emerging from the fernery, he opened the wicket gate, which just there led into the first field, a large and park-like area, out of which, within brick walls, the vegetable garden had been carved.

    Indian Summer of a Forsyte 2004

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