bough

See also: Bough

Contents

English

Alternative forms

• bow, bowe (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English bough, bowe, bogh, boȝe, boȝ, from Old English bōh, bōg (“arm; shoulder; bough”), from Proto-Germanic *bōguz (“upper arm; shoulder”) (compare German Bug (“shoulder, hock, joint”)), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂ǵʰús (“forearm, elbow”) (compare Ancient Greek πῆχυς (pêkhus, “forearm”), Old Armenian բազուկ (bazuk, “arm, forearm, bough”), Persian بازو‎ (bāzu, “upper arm”), Sanskrit बाहु (bāhú, “arm”)).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /baʊ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• Homophone: bow
• Rhymes: -aʊ

Noun

bough (plural boughs)

1. A firm branch of a tree.

   When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), imprinted at London: By Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981, Deuteronomy 24:20:

     When thou beatest thine oliue tree thou shalt not goe ouer the boughes againe: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherlesse, and for the widow.

   • 1819 May, John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”, in Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems, London: Printed [by Thomas Davison] for Taylor and Hessey, […], published 1820, OCLC 927360557, stanza 3, page 114:

     Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed / Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; [...]

   • 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 8, in The Celebrity:

     Now we plunged into a deep shade with the boughs lacing each other overhead, and crossed dainty, rustic bridges over the cold trout-streams, the boards giving back the clatter of our horses' feet: or anon we shot into a clearing, with a colored glimpse of the lake and its curving shore far below us.

   • 2013, J. M. Coetzee, The Childhood of Jesus. Melbourne, Australia: The Text Publishing Company, chapter 18. p. 172:

     A pair of birds settle on the bough above them, murmuring together, ready to roost.

2. (obsolete, poetic) The gallows.

Derived terms

• cut not the bough that you are standing upon

Translations

tree branch

• Albanian: degë (sq) f
• Armenian: ճյուղ (hy) (čyuł), ոստ (hy) (ost)

  Old Armenian: ճիւղ (čiwł), ոստ (ost), կողր (kołr)

• Belarusian: сук m (suk), галіна́ f (haliná), галі́нка f (halínka)
• Bulgarian: клон (bg) m (klon)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 樹枝 (zh), 树枝 (zh) (shùzhī), 枝 (zh) (zhī), 大枝 (dà zhī)

• Czech: větev (cs) f, větévka f
• Danish: gren (da) c
• Dutch: tak (nl) m
• Faroese: grein f
• Finnish: oksa (fi)
• French: branche (fr) f
• Georgian: შტო (šṭo)
• German: Ast (de) m
• Greek: κλάδος (el) m (kládos)

  Ancient: ὀρόδαμνος m (oródamnos)

• Hungarian: ág (hu)
• Icelandic: trjágrein (is) f, grein (is) f
• Ido: brancho (io)
• Irish: géag f
• Italian: ramo (it) m
• Japanese: 枝 (ja) (えだ, eda), 大枝 (おおえだ, ōeda)
• Kazakh: сук (swk)
• Korean: 가지 (ko) (gaji)
• Latin: rāmus m, termes m

• Macedonian: гранка f (granka)
• Maori: kūhā, kūwhā, rūhā
• Navajo: atsʼáozʼaʼ
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: gren (no) m or f, grein (no) m or f

  Nynorsk: grein f

• Persian: شاخه‎ (fa) (šâxe)
• Polish: gałąź (pl) f, konar (pl) m
• Portuguese: galhada (pt) f, galho (pt) m
• Romanian: creangă (ro) f
• Russian: сук (ru) m (suk), ветвь (ru) f (vetvʹ), ве́тка (ru) f (vétka)
• Scottish Gaelic: geug (gd) f, meanglan m, meur f, fiùran m, òganach m, faillean m
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: грана f

  Roman: grana (sh) f

• Slovak: vetva f, konár (sk) m
• Slovene: veja (sl) f
• Spanish: rama (es) f
• Swedish: trädgren (sv) c
• Udi: чӏугъ (č̣uɣ)
• Ukrainian: сук m (suk), гі́лка f (hílka)
• Vietnamese: cành (vi), nhánh (vi), ngành (vi)
• Vilamovian: ost m
• Welsh: cangen (cy) f, gwialen f
• Yiddish: צווײַג‎ f (tsvayg)

Further reading

• “bough” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001–2019.