verdant

American  

[vur-dnt] / ˈvɜr dnt /

adjective

1. green with vegetation; covered with growing plants or grass.

   a verdant oasis.

   Synonyms:

   grassy, lush

2. of the color green.

   a verdant lawn.

3. inexperienced; unsophisticated.

   verdant college freshmen.

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verdant British  

/ ˈvɜːdənt /

adjective

1. covered with green vegetation

2. (of plants, etc) green in colour

3. immature or unsophisticated; green

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Other Word Forms

• unverdant adjective
• unverdantly adverb
• verdancy noun
• verdantly adverb

Etymology

Origin of verdant

First recorded in 1575–85; verd(ure) + -ant

Explanation

When something is green with plant life it's verdant, a word often used to idealize the countryside with its verdant pastures or verdant hills. Here's a trick for internalizing verdant's meaning: If you speak Spanish, think of verde — meaning "green." If you speak French, think of vert. Both French and Spanish inherited their words for green from Latin, in which green is viridis. Verdant also can mean grass-colored: "She wore a dress of verdant green."

Example Sentences

Set on 1.6 verdant acres, the landscaped grounds include an almost 800-square-foot guesthouse and a pool house.

From MarketWatch • Feb. 5, 2026

By Dec. 20 — even before holiday storms pummeled Southern California — the mountains were looking verdant.

From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 13, 2026

This year, somehow, I careened straight from verdant, crisp summer food — cucumber salads, crisp chicken Caesar wraps, yogurt bowls, smoothies — into the warm-orange-and-brown spectrum of winter.

From Salon • Dec. 16, 2025

“Autumn,” while sparser, has its subjects massed at the edges, offering a connection between the verdant periods that come before and the chilly days that lay ahead.

From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 28, 2025

A verdant, treacherous lawn, in which mosquitoes bred and fish were fat but inaccessible.

From "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy

Related Words

• flourishing
• grassy
• leafy
• lush