Liberal Dictionary English Dictionary
noun
- Also called fescue grass. any grass of the genus Festuca, some species of which are cultivated for pasture or lawns.
- a pointer, as a straw or slender stick, used to point out the letters in teaching children to read.
noun
- any grass of the genus Festuca : widely cultivated as pasture and lawn grasses, having stiff narrow leavesSee also meadow fescue, sheep’s fescue
1510s, “teacher’s pointer,” alteration of festu “piece of straw, twig” (late 14c.), from Old French festu (Modern French fétu), a kind of straw, from Vulgar Latin festucum, from Latin festuca “straw, stalk, rod,” probably related to ferula (see ferule). Sense of “pasture, lawn grass” is first recorded 1762.