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Etymology and origin of the English word bushel

Pronunciation

  • /ˈbʊʃəl/[1]
  • US: /ˈbuʃəl/[1]

bushel1 measure of capacity

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1300 Battle Abbey Custumals
Borrowed from
Old French boissel via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Gaulish *bosta

Etymology

The word for the measure is inherited from Middle English busshel, also boyschel and buisshel,[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French boissel, also boissiel,[5][6][7][3] modern French boisseau.[6][7][3] The American Heritage Dictionary names the variant Anglo-Norman bussel as the immediate source,[8] recorded from 1086 as a measure for liquids or grain,[9] and the Middle English Dictionary adds Medieval Latin bussellus.[2] Most dictionaries take the French word as formed with a diminutive or noun suffix from boisse (“a grain measure, a sixth of a bushel”),[6][10][4][11][12] attested only in Middle French,[5][4] and trace this through a Gallo-Romance *bostia (“handful”) to Gaulish *bosta (“palm of the hand”),[6][10][5] comparing Middle Irish boss, bass (“palm of the hand”) and Breton boz (“the hollow of the hand”).[6][10][4] Hoad, the Oxford Dictionary of English and the Shorter Oxford call the Gaulish origin only possible.[7][13][14] The OED, in text first published in 1888, instead gives Diez's view, a diminutive of boiste (“box”), supported by bustellus beside bissellus,[3] and Weekley follows it.[15]

Earliest recorded meaning

A measure of capacity for grain and the like, four pecks or eight gallons: about 1300, in the custumals of Battle Abbey.[3] Etymonline has the early 14th century,[6] Barnhart about 1330,[5] and Dictionary.com gives 1250–1300.[11] The Middle English Dictionary's first quotation, of about 1330, already prices it: "A busshel of whete was at foure shillinges or more".[2]

Semantic evolution

The amount varied from place to place and by commodity;[6] Britain fixed it by law only in the 19th century, while American states kept their own figures.[6] Wright's dialect dictionary records two pecks in Ayrshire and 24 gallons at Carlisle.[16] Already in Chaucer, who has the word four times,[17] it could mean loosely a large quantity;[3][6] from about 1384 it also meant the vessel used for measuring,[3][6] the sense in the Wycliffite Bible's "undir a boyschel".[15] That is what Matthew 5:15 means by a light hidden under a bushel, a container rather than a quantity;[18][6] the figurative use is recorded from 1557,[3] and a verb, to hide under a bushel, from 1650.[3][4] Johnson (1755) gave eight gallons and the synonym "a strike".[19] In American English the word also became a measure of milk, recorded from 1823,[20] and in logging of the Pacific Northwest it passed to piecework, so that fallers and buckers were bushelers by 1948.[20] Because scrap iron was once sold by the bushel, the verb also came to mean heating scrap iron to a welding temperature.[4]

Timeline

  • c. 1300 – a measure of capacity, four pecks or eight gallons.[3]
  • c. 1374 – loosely, a large quantity, in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde.[3][6]
  • c. 1384 – a vessel used as the measure, in the Wycliffite Bible.[3]
  • 1557 – figurative, with reference to hiding one's light.[3]
  • 1636 – to measure other people's corn by one's own bushel, to judge others by oneself.[3]
  • 1650 – verb, to hide under a bushel.[3][4]
  • 1823 – in American use, a measure of milk.[20]
  • 1948 – bushelers, loggers on piecework in western Washington.[20]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A United States unit of dry measure equal to four pecks or 2,150.42 cubic inches.[4][8][21]
  2. A British unit of dry and liquid measure equal to eight imperial gallons.[4][8][21]
  3. A container holding this amount.[8][21][4]
  4. A unit of weight equal to the weight of a bushel of a given commodity.[11]
  5. (informal) A large amount.[8][21][3]
  6. hide one's light under a bushel: to keep one's abilities or merits concealed.[21][14][3]

Verb

  1. (rare) To hide under a bushel, or as if under one.[14][3][4]
  2. To heat scrap iron to a welding temperature, especially in a reverberatory furnace.[4]
  3. In the logging of the American Northwest, to fell trees and buck logs by piecework.[20]

Word family

  • bushelful

bushel2 to mend clothes

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1877 additions to Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms
Borrowed from
German bosseln
Ultimate origin
German bosseln

Etymology

The word for the tailoring verb is probably borrowed from German bosseln (“to do odd jobs, to do poor work, to patch”),[4][8][21][11] though the OED and the Shorter Oxford say only perhaps.[3][14] Merriam-Webster Unabridged takes busheler as probably from German bossler.[4] Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Collins derive the German verb from Middle High German bōzeln (“to beat”), from Old High German bōzan, related to beat.[4][21] The American Heritage Dictionary instead takes it as an alteration of basteln (“to rig up, mend”), perhaps influenced by a homonym meaning "to emboss", and probably from Bast, the fibre bast.[8] Dictionary.com derives it from French bosseler (“to emboss”).[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

To repair garments: 1877, in the additions to the fourth edition of Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms.[3] Merriam-Webster Unabridged has about 1877,[4] and Dictionary.com has 1875–80 and calls it an Americanism.[11] The agent noun is older: bushelman, a man or woman employed in repair tailoring, is recorded from 1864, in Webster's American Dictionary,[3] and the Shorter Oxford dates the verb to the mid-19th century.[14]

Semantic evolution

The word has stayed within American tailoring, for altering, finishing and repairing garments, especially men's suits.[4][14] Its agent nouns are busheler and bushelman,[4][3] the latter with the variant bushelwoman.[14]

Timeline

  • 1877 – verb, to repair garments.[3][4]

Meanings

Verb

  1. (US) To alter, finish or repair garments, especially men's suits.[4][14][3]

Word family

  • busheler
  • bushelman
  • bushelwoman

Usage notes

The singular can serve as a plural in American regional speech, noted from Kentucky about 1960.[20] The OED and the Middle English Dictionary record the bush or box of a wheel from 1433; the OED calls it of uncertain origin and compares bush, while the Middle English Dictionary treats it as the same word as the measure.[3][2] In Fife, a bushel was a small dam made in a gutter to catch water.[16]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  7. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ a b c d e f g The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  9. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  10. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  11. ^ a b c d e f Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  12. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  13. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  14. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  15. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  16. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  17. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
  18. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  19. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  20. ^ a b c d e f Cassidy, Frederic G. & Joan Houston Hall (eds.) (1985–2002), Dictionary of American Regional English, vols I–IV, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
  21. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Bushel.” Etymologically, 6 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/bushel. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

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