Etymologically
Log in

bush

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 16 October 2026 at 00:31. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /bʊʃ/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English bussh, busk, inherited from Old English busc, found only in place-names,[2][3] from Proto-West Germanic *busk (“bush, thicket”),[2] the source also of Old High German busc, Dutch bos and German Busch.[2][3][4] Old French busche “firewood” and Medieval Latin busca, themselves probably from Germanic, influenced it,[2][3] and the northern form busk may reflect Old Norse buski,[5][3] though the MED, quoted by Barnhart, derives busk from Anglo-Latin busca.[3] It is related to ambush.[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A shrub with close branches from the ground: about 1250 in the form busk, about 1315 as bush, in the OED;[7] Chaucer has bussh before 1375.[3]

Semantic evolution

A clump of shrubs used as a hiding place is from about 1330,[7] and a thicket or bushy ground from 1523.[7] To beat the bush (mid-15th century) was to rouse birds into nets, the origin of beat around the bush.[2][7] A branch hung out as a tavern sign is from the 1530s, hence good wine needs no bush.[2] In the American colonies the bush was the uncleared country from the 1650s,[2][3] and in South Africa the country as opposed to the town from 1780, probably from Dutch.[2] The meaning “pubic hair” is from 1745.[2] Bushed, lost in the bush (1856), came to mean “exhausted” in American English by 1870.[3] The verb, to grow thick, is from about 1500.[2]

Timeline

  • c. 1250 – a shrub (busk).[7]
  • c. 1330 – a hiding place in shrubs.[7]
  • c. 1440 – beat the bush.[7]
  • 1530s – a tavern sign.[2]
  • 1650s – uncleared country.[2]
  • 1780 – the country, in South Africa.[2]
  • 1870 – bushed, exhausted.[3]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A woody plant with many branches, smaller than a tree; a shrub.
  2. A thick growth of shrubs.
  3. the bush: wild land far from towns, especially in Australia or Africa.
  4. A thick mass of hair.

Verb

  1. To grow thickly like a bush.

Word family

  • bushless
  • bushlike
  • brittlebush
  • bushbuck
  • busher
  • bushtit
  • bushveld
  • ambush
  • bouquet
  • bushman
  • bushel
  • bosky

Usage notes

A different bush, the metal lining of a hole such as the axle-hole of a wheel (also bushing), is from Middle Dutch busse “box”, from Late Latin buxis;[4][5][7] MWU dates it to 1566.[4] In American slang bush is short for bush league, minor or amateurish.[4]

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press