bush
/ˈbʊʃ/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.49 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
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.
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "bushes to support pea vines"
- "We saw a bush of wood, and in the heart of it a little open space."
- "If it be true, that good wine needs no buſh, 'tis true, that a good play needes no Epilogue."
- ""Well," replied Lady Mary, "who is to know where good wine is sold, unless you hang out the bush.""
- "As he ſtood on one ſide for a minute or ſo, unbuttoning his waſte-coat, and breeches, her fat brawny thighs hung down, and the whole greaſy landſkip lay fairly open to my view: a wide open-mouth'd gap, overſhaded with a grizzly buſh, ſeemed held out like a beggar's wallet for its'^([sic]) proviſion."
Etymology
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”). Doublet of bosque. Cognates Cognate with Saterland Frisian Busk (“bush”), West Frisian bosk (“forest”), Dutch bos (“forest, wood”), German Busch (“bush, shrub; small forest, grove”), Luxembourgish Bësch (“forest, wood”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk busk (“bush, shrub”), Icelandic buski (“bush, shrub”), Swedish buske (“bush, shrub”), Persian بیشه (bêša/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. Compare typologically Russian за́росли (zárosli) (akin to расти́ (rastí)). Also compare Russian быльё (bylʹjó) (distantly cognate via *bʰuH-).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈbʊʃ/
- British English: /ˈbʊʃ/
Usage
Inflected Forms
bushes (plural)
bushes (present, singular)
bushing (participle, present)
bushed (participle, past)
bushed (past)
more bush (comparative)
most bush (superlative)