bush

• IPA^(key): /bʊʃ/

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• Rhymes: -ʊʃ

A bush (woody plant)

From Middle English busch, busshe, from Old English busc, bysc (“copse, grove, scrub”, in placenames), 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 and buisson, Italian bosco and boscaglia, Spanish bosque, Portuguese bosque) derive from the Germanic. The sense 'pubic hair' was first attested in 1745.

bush (plural bushes)

1. (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.

2. (slang, vulgar) A person's pubic hair, especially a woman's; loosely, a woman's vulva.
   • 1749, John Cleland, Memoirs Of Fanny Hill, Gutenberg eBook #25305,

     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.

3. A shrub cut off, or a shrublike branch of a tree.

   bushes to support pea vines

4. (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.
   • William Shakespeare

     If it be true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good play needs no epilogue.

5. (hunting) The tail, or brush, of a fox.

• (category of woody plant): shrub
• See also Thesaurus:pubic hair

bush (third-person singular simple present bushes, present participle bushing, simple past and past participle bushed)

1. (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.

2. To set bushes for; to support with bushes.

   to bush peas

3. 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

From the sign of a bush usually employed to indicate such places.

bush (plural bushes)

1. (archaic) A tavern or wine merchant.

• good wine needs no bush

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.

bush (countable and uncountable, plural bushes)

1. (often with "the") Rural areas, typically remote, wooded, undeveloped and uncultivated.
   1. (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, Short Stories in Prose and Verse, Gutenberg Australia eBook #0607911,

        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, Gutenberg Australia eBook #0900681h,

        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.

   2. (New Zealand) An area of New Zealand covered in forest, especially native forest.
   3. (Canada) The wild forested areas of Canada; upcountry.
2. (Canada) A woodlot or bluff on a farm.

• bushman (not derived from bush but separately derived from cognate Dutch)

• → Dutch: bush, bushbush

• backblock, outback

bush (not comparable)

1. (Australia) Towards the direction of the outback.

   On hatching, the chicks scramble to the surface and head bush on their own.

Back-formation from bush league.

bush (comparative more bush, superlative most bush)

1. (colloquial) Not skilled; not professional; not major league.

   They're supposed to be a major league team, but so far they've been bush.

bush

1. (baseball) Amateurish behavior, short for "bush league behavior"

From Middle Dutch busse (“box; wheel bushing”), from Proto-Germanic *buhsuz. More at box.

bush (plural bushes)

1. A thick washer or hollow cylinder of metal.
2. 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.
3. A piece of copper, screwed into a gun, through which the venthole is bored.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Farrow to this entry?)

• (washer or cylinder): bushing

• reducing bush

bush (third-person singular simple present bushes, present participle bushing, simple past and past participle bushed)

1. (transitive) To furnish with a bush or lining.

   to bush a pivot hole

• hubs

• bushk

Either from Latin buxus[1], or from Proto-Indo-European *bʰuH 'to grow' (compare Dutch bos (“woods”), English bush).

• IPA^(key): /buʃ/

bush m (indefinite plural bushe, definite singular bushi, definite plural bushet)

1. (botany) boxwood (Buxus sempervirens)

• bushtë
• bushnjesh
• bushk

Possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰuH (“to grow”).

bush m (indefinite plural busha, definite singular bushi, definite plural bushat)

1. a mythological monster

• bushtër

• bisht

• bushu, bushtu

Compare Daco-Romanian buș.

bush m (plural bush) or n (plural bushi/bushe)

1. fist

• shub, pulmu, huftã, mãnatã

• IPA^(key): [buʃ]

bush (plural bushongo)

1. cat

• gus bush
• hir bush
• bushe isko

Sadaf Munshi (2015), “Word Lists”, in Burushaski Language Documentation Project‎