thicket

Etymology

It is inherited from Old English þiccet (“a place of dense growth”),^[2][3][4] formed from Old English þicce + -et,^[5][2][6][7] that is, thick in the sense "dense, growing close together" with a denominative suffix, as in emnet (“plain”) and rȳmet (“space”).^[3][2] Weekley compares German Dickicht.^[8] No Middle English form is recorded,^[5][9] though Merriam-Webster Unabridged assumes one, thikket.^[10] Barnhart takes the modern word as a revival of the early 1500s, by Tyndale and others,^[5] and Etymonline leaves open a dialect survival or a new formation.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A dense growth of shrubs or small trees: before 1000,^[5][9] in the Old English psalter known as the Spelman Psalter.^[2] The word reappears in 1530, in Palsgrave.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The sense has hardly changed from Old English on, and Johnson (1755) gives "a close knot or tuft of trees; a close wood or copse".^[2][11] What has been added is the figurative use, a tangle hard to get through, first recorded in 1582 in Stanyhurst's Virgil.^[2][10] Slang and bawdy verse have used it for pubic hair since about 1660, as part of hunting wordplay.^[12] In Devon dialect it may have meant a faggot, on the evidence of one uncertain quotation.^[13]

Timeline

• before 1000 – þiccet, a place of dense growth.^[5][2]
• 1530 – reappears as thicket, in Palsgrave.^[5]
• 1582 – figurative use, a dense tangle.^[2]
• c. 1660 – slang, pubic hair.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A dense growth of shrubs, bushes or small trees; a coppice: The fox slipped into a thicket of hawthorn.^[14][10][2]
2. A tangled mass that is hard to get through: a thicket of tax regulations.^[10][2][7]
3. (slang) Pubic hair.^[12]

Word family

• thickety
• thicketed

Related words

• thick

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
5. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
9. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
13. ^ 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)
14. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins