bushel

From Old French boissel, from boisse, a grain measure based on Gaulish *bostyā‎ (“handful”), from Proto-Celtic *bostā (“palm, fist”) (compare Breton boz (“hollow of the hand”), Old Irish bas), from Proto-Indo-European *gwost-, *gwosdʰ- (“branch”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈbʊʃəl/

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• Rhymes: -ʊʃəl

bushel (plural bushels)

1. (historical) A dry measure, containing four pecks, eight gallons, or thirty-two quarts.
   • 1882, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, Volume 4, p. 207:

     The quarter, bushel, and peck are nearly universal measures of corn.

2. A vessel of the capacity of a bushel, used in measuring; a bushel measure.
   • 1526, William Tyndale, trans. Bible, Mark IV:

     And he sayde unto them: is the candle lighted, to be put under a busshell, or under the borde: ys it not therfore lighted that it shulde be put on a candelsticke?

3. A quantity that fills a bushel measure.

   a heap containing ten bushels of apples

4. (colloquial) A large indefinite quantity.
5. (Britain) The iron lining in the nave of a wheel.

   Synonym: box

• hide one's light under a bushel

• kenning (“half a bushel”)

bushel (third-person singular simple present bushels, present participle busheling or bushelling, simple past and past participle busheled or bushelled)

1. (US, tailoring, transitive, intransitive) To mend or repair clothes.
2. To pack grain, hops, etc. into bushel measures.

bushel

1. Alternative form of busheli