bough

• bow, bowe (obsolete)

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”)).

• IPA^(key): /baʊ/

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• Homophone: bow
• Rhymes: -aʊ

bough (plural boughs)

1. A firm branch of a tree.

   When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall.

   • 1819, John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn

     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.

• cut not the bough that you are standing upon

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