bushy

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English busshi, also spelt buschi,^[2] formed from English bush + -y.^[3][4][5][6] The noun, a person who lives in the bush, is probably a shortening of bushman,^[3][5] while the Shorter Oxford takes it from bush with another suffix -y.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Overgrown with bushes or shrubs: before 1382, in the early version of the Wycliffite Bible, which speaks of alle busshi places.^[3][2] Etymonline dates the word to the late 14th century.^[4] The same version of the Bible also used it for "leafy".^[2]

Semantic evolution

From 1567 the word described a plant growing like a bush,^[3] and Johnson (1755) defined it as thick and full of small branches, but not high.^[7] Of hair, "growing thick like a bush", it is recorded from before 1609,^[3] the 1610s in Etymonline.^[4] From 1615 to 1650 it was used of people with long thick hair.^[3] From 1756 it also meant puffed out like a bush.^[3] In Australia it came to mean "of the bush" (1900, Henry Lawson),^[3] and Green's Dictionary of Slang records it for "countrified, unsophisticated".^[8] The noun bushy, a person from the bush, is recorded in the Sydney Bulletin in 1881.^[3][8] The phrase bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, alert and lively, is built on the compound bushy-tailed.^[6]

Timeline

• before 1382 – overgrown with bushes; leafy.^[3][2]
• 1567 – growing like a bush.^[3]
• before 1609 – of hair, growing thick like a bush.^[3]
• 1615 – of people, long-haired (obsolete by 1650).^[3]
• 1756 – puffed out like a bush.^[3]
• 1881 – noun, in Australia, a person who lives in the bush.^[3][8]
• 1900 – concerned with the Australian bush.^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Thick and spreading, like a bush: a fox with a bushy tail.^[5][9][6]
2. Full of or overgrown with bushes.^[5][9][6]

Noun

1. (Australia and New Zealand, informal) A person who lives in the bush or outback, sometimes thought of as unsophisticated.^[3][6][8]

Word family

• bushily
• bushiness
• bushy-tailed

Related words

• bushman

References

1. ^ 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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ a b c d Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
9. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin