Ivy

How to spell ivy

3 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce ivy

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does ivy mean?

1. nounAn evergreen climbing or trailing plant with glossy, often lobed leaves that clings to walls, fences, and trees.

Ivy in a sentence

• Thick ivy covered the entire side of the old cottage.

• He spent the afternoon pulling ivy off the garden fence.

Where does ivy come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Ivy descends from the Old English word ifig, the native name for the familiar evergreen climbing plant. The form has clear cousins across the old Germanic languages, including the Old High German ebah, though scholars have never pinned down a deeper meaning for the original root, so its ultimate sense is genuinely unknown. Over the centuries the spelling smoothed from ifig down to the short modern ivy, with the old guttural fading out of pronunciation. The plant has long been bound up in English culture, from the holly-and-ivy of midwinter songs to the ivy-clad walls that gave the American Ivy League its nickname. The spelling trap is small but real: the unstressed final sound is written with a plain y rather than the ey or ie an adult might guess.

How the word is built

• ivy (single root, from Old English ifig; no prefix or suffix)