bush
EnglishEdit
PronunciationEdit
Etymology 1Edit
From Middle English bush, from Old English busċ, *bysċ (“copse, grove, scrub”, in placenames), from Proto-West Germanic *busk, from Proto-Germanic *buskaz (“bush, thicket”), probably from Proto-Indo-European *bʰuH- (“to grow”).
Cognate with West Frisian bosk (“forest”), Dutch bos (“forest”), German Busch (“bush”), Danish and Norwegian busk (“bush, shrub”), Swedish buske (“bush, shrub”), Persian بیشه (biše, “woods”). Latin and Romance forms (Latin boscus, Occitan bòsc, French bois, bûche and buisson, Italian bosco and boscaglia, Spanish bosque, Portuguese bosque) derive from the Germanic. The sense 'pubic hair' was first attested in 1745.
NounEdit
bush (plural bushes)
- (horticulture) A woody plant distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and lower height, being usually less than six metres tall; a horticultural rather than strictly botanical category.
- 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 1, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:
- I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.
- A shrub cut off, or a shrublike branch of a tree.
- bushes to support pea vines
- (historical) A shrub or branch, properly, a branch of ivy (sacred to Bacchus), hung out at vintners' doors, or as a tavern sign; hence, a tavern sign, and symbolically, the tavern itself.
- c. 1598–1600, William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act V, scene iv]:
- If it be true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good play needs no epilogue.
- 1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], OCLC 21345056, page 31:
- "Well," replied Lady Mary, "who is to know where good wine is sold, unless you hang out the bush."
- (slang, vulgar) A person's pubic hair, especially a woman's.
- 1749, [John Cleland], “(Please specify the letter or volume)”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], London: […] G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton and Ralph Griffiths] […], OCLC 731622352:
- As he stood on one side, unbuttoning his waistcoat and breeches, her fat brawny thighs hung down, and the whole greasy landscape lay fairly open to my view; a wide open mouthed gap, overshaded with a grizzly bush, seemed held out like a beggar′s wallet for its provision.
- 1982, Lawrence Durrell, Constance, Faber & Faber 2004 (Avignon Quintet), p. 787:
- But no, the little pool of semen was there, proof positive, with droplets caught hanging in her bush.
- 2002, “The Seed (2.0)”, in Phrenology, performed by The Roots:
- I push my seed in her bush for life / It's gonna work because I'm pushing it right
- (hunting) The tail, or brush, of a fox.
SynonymsEdit
- (category of woody plant): shrub
- See also Thesaurus:pubic hair
Derived termsEdit
- a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush
- ale-bush
- Australian bush hat
- beat about the bush
- beat around the bush
- beauty bush
- broom-bush
- broom bush
- burning bush
- bush antelope
- bush apple
- bush baby
- bush ballad
- bush balladry
- bush-balladry
- bush banana
- bush baptist
- bush bar
- bush brown
- bush clover
- bush cow
- bush-cricket
- bush cricket
- bush dog
- bush fly
- bush frog
- bush hammer
- bush-hen
- Bush Hill Park
- bush jacket
- bush-Kanaka
- bush kanaka
- bush knife
- bush-league
- bush lemon
- bushlike
- bushly
- bush-metal
- bush muhly
- bush out
- bush pig
- bush pole
- bush regen
- bush regeneration
- bush rose
- bush rum
- bush shrike
- bush song
- bush stone-curlew
- bush sunflower
- bush taxi
- bush-telegraph
- bush thick-knee
- bush tomato
- bush trimmer
- bush turkey
- bush typhus
- bush vetch
- bushy
- butterfly bush
- cancer bush
- caper bush
- Chanukah bush
- Christmas bush
- coffee bush
- common hop bush
- coyote bush
- creosote bush
- devil-in-a-bush
- devil-in-the-bush
- dusky bush tanager
- emu bush
- fever bush
- find a friendly bush
- fork-tailed bush katydid
- Hanukah bush
- Hanukkah bush
- hemp bush
- hobble-bush
- Hottentot's poison bush
- indigo bush
- iodine bush
- Japanese bush warbler
- juniper bush
- juniper bush katydid
- lanolin bush
- little bush moa
- Mexican bush sage
- needle bush
- octopus bush
- pale-footed bush warbler
- river-bush
- rosebush
- round-headed bush clover
- rufous bush chat
- rufous bush robin
- saddle-backed bush cricket
- Shepherd's Bush
- sloe bush
- sloe-bush
- stately bush brown
- strawberry bush
- tie bush
- typical bush warbler
- whortle bush
TranslationsEdit
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VerbEdit
bush (third-person singular simple present bushes, present participle bushing, simple past and past participle bushed)
- (intransitive) To branch thickly in the manner of a bush.
- 1726, Homer, Alexander Pope (translator), The Odyssey, 1839, Samuel Johnson (editor), The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, Esq., page 404,
- Around it, and above, for ever green, / The bushing alders form'd a shady scene.
- 1726, Homer, Alexander Pope (translator), The Odyssey, 1839, Samuel Johnson (editor), The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, Esq., page 404,
- To set bushes for; to support with bushes.
- to bush peas
- To use a bush harrow on (land), for covering seeds sown; to harrow with a bush.
- to bush a piece of land; to bush seeds into the ground
- To become bushy (often used with up).
- I can tell when my cat is upset because he'll bush up his tail.
Etymology 2Edit
From the sign of a bush usually employed to indicate such places.
NounEdit
bush (plural bushes)
Derived termsEdit
Etymology 3Edit
From older Dutch bosch (modern bos (“wood, forest”)), first appearing in the Dutch colonies to designate an uncleared district of a colony, and thence adopted in British colonies as bush. Could alternatively be interpreted as a semantic loan, as bush (etymology 1) is cognate to the aforementioned archaic Dutch bosch.
NounEdit
bush (countable and uncountable, plural bushes)
- (often with "the") Tracts of land covered in natural vegetation that are largely undeveloped and uncultivated.
- 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], OCLC 1042815524, part I, page 199:
- Mad terror had scattered them, men, women, and children, through the bush, and they had never returned.
- (Australia) The countryside area of Australia that is less arid and less remote than the outback; loosely, areas of natural flora even within conurbations.
- 1894, Henry Lawson, “We Called Him “Ally” for Short”, in Short Stories in Prose and Verse[1]:
- I remember, about five years ago, I was greatly annoyed by a ghost, while doing a job of fencing in the bush between here and Perth.
- 1899, Ethel C. Pedley, Dot and the Kangaroo[2]:
- Little Dot had lost her way in the bush.
- 2000, Robert Holden; Paul Cliff; Jack Bedson, The Endless Playground: Celebrating Australian Childhood, page 16:
- The theme of children lost in the bush is a well-worked one in Australian art and literature.
- 2021 September 6, “Australian farmers under pressure from climate change”, in Australian Herald[3]:
- The findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggest Australia may have to jettison tracts of the bush unless there is a massive investment in climate-change adaptation and planning.
- (New Zealand) An area of New Zealand covered in forest, especially native forest.
- (Canada) The wild forested areas of Canada; upcountry.
- (Canada) A woodlot or bluff on a farm.
Derived termsEdit
- Alaskan bush
- bush ague
- bushbaby
- bush aircraft
- bush airline
- bush bread
- bush buggy
- bush camp
- bush clearing
- bush coat
- bush company
- bush country
- bush cowboy
- bushcraft
- bush-crew
- bushed
- bush fever
- bush fire
- bush flier, bush flyer
- bush flying
- bush-French
- bush gang
- bush horse
- bush Indian
- bushland
- bush lawyer
- bush lore
- bush lot
- bush mail
- (Canadian): bushman
- bushmark
- bush meat, bushmeat
- bush partridge
- bush party
- bush people
- bush pilot
- bush plane
- bush-pop
- bush-popper
- bush rabbit
- bush ranch
- bush ranching
- bush-range
- bushranger, bush-ranger
- bush rat
- bush road
- bush-rover
- bush-runner
- bush searcher
- bush tavern
- bush tea
- bush telegraph
- bush trail
- bush tucker
- bush warbler
- bush week
- bushwhack
- bushwhacker
- bushwhacking
- bush-whisky
- bushwork
- bushworker
- go bush
- send bush
- sugar bush
- take to the bush
Related termsEdit
DescendantsEdit
TranslationsEdit
See alsoEdit
AdverbEdit
bush (not comparable)
- (Australia) Towards the direction of the outback.
- On hatching, the chicks scramble to the surface and head bush on their own.
Etymology 4Edit
Back-formation from bush league.
AdjectiveEdit
bush (comparative more bush, superlative most bush)
- (colloquial) Not skilled; not professional; not major league.
- They're supposed to be a major league team, but so far they've been bush.
NounEdit
bush
- (baseball) Amateurish behavior, short for "bush league behavior"
Etymology 5Edit
From Middle Dutch busse (“box; wheel bushing”), from Proto-West Germanic *buhsā. More at box.
NounEdit
bush (plural bushes)
- A thick washer or hollow cylinder of metal.
- A mechanical attachment, usually a metallic socket with a screw thread, such as the mechanism by which a camera is attached to a tripod stand.
- A piece of copper, screwed into a gun, through which the venthole is bored.
SynonymsEdit
- (washer or cylinder): bushing
Related termsEdit
- reducing bush
VerbEdit
bush (third-person singular simple present bushes, present participle bushing, simple past and past participle bushed)
- (transitive) To furnish with a bush or lining; to line.
- to bush a pivot hole
AnagramsEdit
AlbanianEdit
Alternative formsEdit
Etymology 1Edit
Either borrowed through Vulgar Latin from Latin buxus,[1] or from Proto-Indo-European *bʰuH (“to grow”) (compare Dutch bos (“woods”), English bush).
PronunciationEdit
NounEdit
bush m (indefinite plural bushe, definite singular bushi, definite plural bushet)
Derived termsEdit
Etymology 2Edit
Possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰuH (“to grow”).
NounEdit
bush m (indefinite plural busha, definite singular bushi, definite plural bushat)
DeclensionEdit
indefinite forms (trajta të pashquara) |
definite forms (trajta të shquara) | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
singular (numri njëjës) |
plural (numri shumës) |
singular (numri njëjës) |
plural (numri shumës) | ||
nominative (emërore) |
(një) bush | (disa) busha | bushi | bushat | |
accusative (kallëzore) |
(një) bush | (disa) busha | bushin | bushat | |
genitive (gjinore) (i/e/të/së) |
(një) bushi | (disa) bushave | bushit | bushavet | |
dative (dhanore) |
(një) bushi | (disa) bushave | bushit | bushavet | |
ablative (rrjedhore) (prej) |
(një) bushi | (disa) bushash | bushit | bushavet |
Derived termsEdit
Related termsEdit
ReferencesEdit
- ^ Orel, Vladimir (1998), “bush”, in Albanian Etymological Dictionary, Leiden, Boston, Cologne: Brill, →ISBN, page 42
AromanianEdit
Alternative formsEdit
EtymologyEdit
NounEdit
bush m (plural bush) or n (plural bushi/bushe)
SynonymsEdit
BurushaskiEdit
PronunciationEdit
NounEdit
bush (plural bushongo)
See alsoEdit
ReferencesEdit
Sadaf Munshi (2015), “Word Lists”, in Burushaski Language Documentation Project[4].
Middle EnglishEdit
Alternative formsEdit
EtymologyEdit
From Old English busc, bysc, from Proto-West Germanic *busk. Cognates include Middle Dutch bosch, busch, Middle High German busch, bosch, and also Old French bois, buisson.
PronunciationEdit
NounEdit
bush (plural bushes)
- bush (low-lying plant)
DescendantsEdit
ReferencesEdit
- “bush, n.(1).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.