forest
/ˈfɔɹəst/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.70 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A defined area of land set aside in England as royal hunting ground or for other privileged use; all such areas.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "Who after Archimagoes fowle defeat / Led her away into a foreſt wilde, / And turning wrathfull fyre to luſtfull heat, / With beaſtly ſin though her to haue defilde, / And made the vaſſal of his pleaſures vilde."
- "Since the mid-1980s, when Indonesia first began to clear its bountiful forests on an industrial scale in favour of lucrative palm-oil plantations, “haze” has become an almost annual occurrence in South-East Asia. The cheapest way to clear logged woodland is to burn it, producing an acrid cloud of foul white smoke that, carried by the wind, can cover hundreds, or even thousands, of square miles."
- "a forest of criticism"
- "Squealing and still propelled by the kick, the calf scrabbled through the forest of legs and into the open."
- "Throughout the 1500s, the populace roiled over a constellation of grievances of which the forest emerged as a key focal point. The popular late Middle Ages fictional character Robin Hood, dressed in green to symbolize the forest, dodged fines for forest offenses and stole from the rich to give to the poor. But his appeal was painfully real and embodied the struggle over wood."
- "[…] in places such as the Forest of Bowland there is hardly a tree in sight and much of the area is a vast tract of almost barren gritstone hills and peat moorland."
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English forest, from Old French forest, from Early Medieval Latin forestis. The Latin could be: * from foris (“outside”), as in forestis (silva) "(wood) outside," * or from Frankish or Proto-West Germanic *furhisti (“forest, fir-grove, wooded land”), equivalent to fir + hurst. In which case, related to Old English fyrhþe (“forested land”), Old High German forst, forsti (“forest”), Old Norse fýri (“pine forest”). Doublet of frith. Cognate with Dutch vorst (“copse, grove, woodland”), German Forst (“forest”). In this sense, mostly displaced the native Middle English wode, from Old English wudu (modern English wood) and Middle English wald, wold, wæld, from Old English wald, weald (modern English wald, weald, wold).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *perkʷ-, forest, forestis, -, *furhisti
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈfɔɹəst/
- British English: /ˈfɒɹɪst/
Usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in People.
Inflected Forms
Derived Forms
Phrases
African forest elephant
amber forest cockroach
Ardenne Forest
Ardennes Forest
Back Forest
bastion forest
Bauple Forest
Beech Forest