bush

I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.

1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, page 18:

(horticulture) A woody plant distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and lower height, being usually less than six metres tall; a horticultural rather than strictly botanical category.

bushes to support pea vines

A shrub cut off, or a shrublike branch of a tree.

If it be true, that good wine needs no buſh, 'tis true, that a good play needes no Epilogue.

c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iv], page 207, column 2:

"Well," replied Lady Mary, "who is to know where good wine is sold, unless you hang out the bush."

1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Chapter IV. The Fête.”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 31:

(historical) A shrub or branch, properly, a branch of ivy (sacred to Bacchus), hung out at vintners' doors, or as a tavern sign; hence, a tavern sign, and symbolically, the tavern itself.

As he ſtood on one ſide for a minute or ſo, unbuttoning his waſte-coat, and breeches, her fat brawny thighs hung down, and the whole greaſy landſkip lay fairly open to my view: a wide open-mouth’d gap, overſhaded with a grizzly buſh, ſeemed held out like a beggar’s wallet for its’ proviſion.

1749, [John Cleland], “[Letter the First]”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], volume I, London: […] [Thomas Parker] for G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton and Ralph Griffiths] […], →OCLC, page 65:

I rub her bush with my cheek and my chin, tickle her bonne-bouche with my tongue.

1941, Henry Miller, Under the Roofs of Paris (Opus Pistorum), New York: Grove Press, published 1983, page 27:

But no, the little pool of semen was there, proof positive, with droplets caught hanging in her bush.

1982, Lawrence Durrell, Constance (Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published 2004, page 787:

I push my seed in her bush for life / It's gonna work because I'm pushing it right

2002, “The Seed (2.0)”, in Phrenology, performed by The Roots:

(slang, vulgar) A person's pubic hair, especially a woman's.

a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush

From Middle English bush, from Old English busċ, *bysċ (“copse, grove, scrub”, in placenames), from Proto-West Germanic *busk, from Proto-Germanic *buskaz (“bush, thicket”), probably from Proto-Indo-European *bʰuH- (“to grow”). Doublet of bosque.
Cognate with West Frisian bosk (“forest”), Dutch bos (“forest”), German Busch (“bush”), Danish and Norwegian busk (“bush, shrub”), Swedish buske (“bush, shrub”), Persian بیشه (bêša/biše, “woods”). Latin and Romance forms (Latin boscus, Occitan bòsc, French bois, bûche and buisson, Italian bosco and boscaglia, Spanish bosque, Portuguese bosque) derive from the Germanic.


bush

Around it, and above, for ever green, / The bushing alders form'd a shady scene.

1726, Homer, “The Odyssey”, in Alexander Pope, transl., edited by Samuel Johnson, The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, Esq., published 1839, page 404:

(intransitive) To branch thickly in the manner of a bush.

to bush peas

To set bushes for; to support with bushes.

to bush a piece of land; to bush seeds into the ground

To use a bush harrow on (land), for covering seeds sown; to harrow with a bush.

I can tell when my cat is upset because he’ll bush up his tail.

en-verb

bush (third-person singular simple present bushes, present participle bushing, simple past and past participle bushed)

bushes (present singular third-person)
bushing (participle present)
bushed (participle past)
bushed (past)


bush

From the sign of a bush usually employed to indicate such places.


bush

I remember, about five years ago, I was greatly annoyed by a ghost, while doing a job of fencing in the bush between here and Perth.

1894, Henry Lawson, “We Called Him “Ally” for Short”, in Short Stories in Prose and Verse:

Little Dot had lost her way in the bush.

1899, Ethel C. Pedley, Dot and the Kangaroo:

The theme of children lost in the bush is a well-worked one in Australian art and literature.

2000, Robert Holden, Paul Cliff, Jack Bedson, The Endless Playground: Celebrating Australian Childhood, page 16:

The findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggest Australia may have to jettison tracts of the bush unless there is a massive investment in climate-change adaptation and planning.

2021 September 6, “Australian farmers under pressure from climate change”, in Australian Herald:

(often with "the") Tracts of land covered in natural vegetation that are largely undeveloped and uncultivated.

(Australia) The countryside area of Australia that is less arid and less remote than the outback; loosely, areas of natural flora even within conurbations.

(New Zealand) An area of New Zealand covered in forest, especially native forest.

(Canada) The wild forested areas of Canada; upcountry.

Mad terror had scattered them, men, women, and children, through the bush, and they had never returned.

1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 199:

en-noun

bush (countable and uncountable, plural bushes)

bushman

not derived from bush but separately derived from cognate Dutch

→ Dutch: bush, bushbush

bush

remote undeveloped and uncultivated rural area

From older Dutch bosch (modern bos (“wood, forest”)), first appearing in the Dutch colonies to designate an uncleared district of a colony, and thence adopted in British colonies as bush. Could alternatively be interpreted as a semantic loan, as bush (etymology 1) is cognate to the aforementioned archaic Dutch bosch.


bush

On hatching, the chicks scramble to the surface and head bush on their own.

(Australia) Towards the direction of the outback.


bush

They’re supposed to be a major league team, but so far they've been bush.

(colloquial) Not skilled; not professional; not major league.

en-adj

bush (comparative more bush, superlative most bush)

more bush (comparative)
most bush (superlative)


bush

(baseball) Amateurish behavior, short for "bush league behavior"


bush

A thick washer or hollow cylinder of metal.

A mechanical attachment, usually a metallic socket with a screw thread, such as the mechanism by which a camera is attached to a tripod stand.

A piece of copper, screwed into a gun, through which the venthole is bored.

From Middle Dutch busse (“box; wheel bushing”), from Proto-West Germanic *buhsā. More at box.


bush

to bush a pivot hole

(transitive) To furnish with a bush or lining; to line.