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bush

Pronunciation: /ˈbʊʃ/

The English word “bush” has 20 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. 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.
  2. A shrub cut off, or a shrublike branch of a tree.
  3. A thicket, a small wood, or a tract of uncleared, woody land.
  4. 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.
  5. A person's pubic hair, especially a woman's.
  6. The tail, or brush, of a fox.
  7. A tavern or wine merchant.
  8. Tracts of land covered in natural vegetation that are largely undeveloped and uncultivated, typically distinguished from absolute wilderness by implying a degree of marginal human engagement or proximity to settlement edges.
  9. The countryside area of Australia that is less arid and less remote than the outback; loosely, areas of natural flora even within conurbations.
  10. An area of New Zealand covered in forest, especially native forest.
  11. The wild forested areas of Canada; upcountry.
  12. A wood lot or bluff on a farm.
  13. Amateurish behavior, short for bush league behavior
  14. A thick washer or hollow cylinder of metal.

verb

  1. To branch thickly in the manner of a bush.
  2. To set bushes for; to support with bushes.
  3. To use a bush harrow on (land), for covering seeds sown; to harrow with a bush.
  4. To become bushy (often used with up).

adverb

  1. Towards the direction of the outback.

adjective

  1. Not skilled; not professional; not major league.

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…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.