# bush
## English
### Pronunciation

* IPA: /bʊʃ/
** Audio (US):(file)
** Audio (General Australian):(file)
* (Scotland, Northern Ireland) IPA: /bʉʃ/
* Rhymes: -ʊʃ

### Etymology 1

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.

#### Noun

bush (plural bushes)
* (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.
    Synonym: shrub
** 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: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.
* A shrub cut off, or a shrublike branch of a tree.
    bushes to support pea vines
* (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.
** 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:If it be true, that good wine needs no buſh, 'tis true, that a good play needes no Epilogue.
** 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:"Well," replied Lady Mary, "who is to know where good wine is sold, unless you hang out the bush."
* (slang, vulgar) A person's pubic hair, especially a woman's. [from 1745]
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:pubic hair
** 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: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.
** 1941, Henry Miller, Under the Roofs of Paris (Opus Pistorum), New York: Grove Press, published 1983, page 27:I rub her bush with my cheek and my chin, tickle her bonne-bouche with my tongue.
** 1982, Lawrence Durrell, Constance (Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published 2004, page 787:But no, the little pool of semen was there, proof positive, with droplets caught hanging in her bush.
** 2002, “The Seed (2.0)”, in Phrenology, performed by The Roots:I push my seed in her bush for life / It's gonna work because I'm pushing it right
* (hunting) The tail, or brush, of a fox.

##### Derived terms

* a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush
* ale-bush
* antelope bush
* apple bush
* beat about the bush
* beat around the bush
* beauty bush
* bellyache bush
* bitou bush
* bitterbush
* brittlebush
* broom bush
* broom-bush
* broombush
* bubby bush
* burning bush
* burrobrush
* bush apple
* bush baby
* bush ballad
* bush balladry
* bush-balladry
* bush banana
* bush bar
* bushbird
* bushboy
* bush brown
* bushbuck
* Bushbury
* bushcamp
* bush candle
* bushcat
* bushchat
* bush clover
* bush cow
* bush-cricket
* bushcricket
* bush cricket
* bush dog
* busher
* bushfighter
* bushfighting
* bush fly
* bush frog
* bushful
* bush goat
* bush hammer
* bush-hen
* Bush Hill Park
* bush honeysuckle
* bush jacket
* bush jasmine
* bush knife
* bushlark
* bush lemon
* bushless
* bushlet
* bushlike
* bush lily
* bushly
* bush medicine
* bush-metal
* bush muhly
* Bush Negro
* bush out
* bush pee
* bush pole
* bushrope
* bush rose
* bushrue
* bush rum
* bush salute
* bush shrike
* bush-shrike
* bush song
* bush sunflower
* bush taxi
* bush thick-knee
* bushtit
* bush tomato
* bushtop
* bush trimmer
* bush turkey
* bush typhus
* bushveld
* bush vetch
* bush wee
* Bushwick
* bushwillow
* bushy
* butterfly bush
* buttonbush
* cancer bush
* candle bush
* caper bush
* Chanukah bush
* Christmas bush
* coffee bush
* common hop bush
* cone bush
* cone-bush
* coralbush
* coyote bush
* creambush
* creosote bush
* Cutbush
* devil-in-a-bush
* devil-in-the-bush
* dusky bush tanager
* elderbush
* elephant bush
* emu bush
* eyelash bush viper
* fern bush
* fever bush
* find a friendly bush
* fit-bush
* flannelbush
* flaxbush
* fork-tailed bush katydid
* gallbush
* gentry bush
* glory bush
* groundsel bush
* Hanukah bush
* Hanukkah bush
* hemp bush
* highbush
* hobblebush
* hobble-bush
* Hollybush
* honeybush
* hopbush
* Hottentot's poison bush
* indigo bush
* inkbush
* iodine bush
* ivory bush coral
* jack-in-the-bush
* Japanese bush warbler
* jewbush
* juniper bush
* juniper bush katydid
* kapok bush
* lanolin bush
* little bush moa
* lowbush
* macaw bush
* maybush
* Mexican bush sage
* milkbush
* mintbush
* nannybush
* needle bush
* needlebush
* nitre bush
* Nutbush
* octopus bush
* pale-footed bush warbler
* paperbush
* pepperbush
* potato bush
* rebush
* redbush
* river-bush
* rosebush
* round-headed bush clover
* rufous bush chat
* rufous bush robin
* saddle-backed bush cricket
* saltbush
* shadbush
* shadow-vinnie bush
* Shepherd's Bush
* silverbush
* skunkbush
* sloe bush
* sloe-bush
* sloebush
* smokebush
* snowbush
* soldierbush
* sourbush
* spearbush
* spicebush
* squawbush
* staggerbush
* stately bush brown
* steeplebush
* stinkbush
* stop two gaps with one bush
* strawberry bush
* stringbush
* sugarbush
* tie bush
* turkey bush
* typical bush warbler
* unbushlike
* whortle bush
* wishbone bush

##### Translations

Afrikaans: bos (af), bosse
Albanian: shkurre (sq) f, ferrëkuqe (sq) f, gëmushë (sq) f
Amharic: please add this translation if you can
Anjam: ñañu
Arabic: شَجْيْرَة f (šajyra)
Egyptian Arabic: جب m (gubb)
Aragonese: arbuzo (an) m
Armenian: թուփ (hy) (tʻupʻ)
Aromanian: tufã f
Assamese: জোপোহা (züpüha)
Asturian: arbustu (ast) m
Azerbaijani: bürmə, kol (az)
Bashkir: ҡыуаҡ (qıwaq)
Basque: zuhaixka (eu)
Belarusian: куст m (kust)
Bengali: গুল্ম (bn) (gulmo)
Bulgarian: храст (bg) m (hrast)
Burmese: ချုံ (my) (hkyum)
Catalan: arbust (ca) m
Central Franconian: Bösch
Cherokee: ᏚᏩᏱᏢ (duwayitlv)
Chinese:
Cantonese: please add this translation if you can
Mandarin: 灌木 (zh) (guànmù)
Czech: keř (cs) m
Danish: busk (da)
Dutch: struik (nl), heester (nl)
Egyptian: (kꜣkꜣ), (bꜣt)
Coptic: ⲃⲱ (bō)
(Akhmimic): ⲃⲟⲩ (bou)
Esperanto: arbusto (eo), arbedo
Estonian: põõsas (et)
Faroese: runnur m
Finnish: pensas (fi)
French: buisson (fr) m, arbrisseau (fr) m
Old French: buison m
Friulian: please add this translation if you can
Galician: gamallo m, garamallo m, albustre m, arbusto (gl) m, frundío m, mato m, matogueira f
Georgian: ბუჩქი (bučki)
German: Strauch (de) m, Busch (de) m
Greek: θάμνος (el) m (thámnos)
Ancient: θάμνος m (thámnos)
Greenlandic: orpikkat, orpigaq
Gujarati: ઝાડવું n (jhāḍvũ)
Hebrew: שִׂיחַ (he) m (siakh)
Hindi: झाड़ी (hi) f (jhāṛī)
Hungarian: bokor (hu)
Icelandic: runni (is) m
Indonesian: semak (id)
Irish: tor m, tom m
Italian: arbusto (it) m, cespuglio (it) m
Japanese: 灌木 (ja) (かんぼく, kanboku), 低木 (ja) (ていぼく, teiboku), 茂み (ja) (しげみ, shigemi) (thicket)
Kannada: ಪೊದೆ (kn) (pode)
Kazakh: бұта (būta)
Khmer: គុម្ពោត (km) (kumpout), គុម្ព (km) (kum), គុម្ពព្រឹក្ស (kum prɨk)
Korean: 수풀 (ko) (supul), 관목(灌木) (ko) (gwanmok)
Kurdish:
Northern Kurdish: devî (ku) f, teraş (ku) f
Kyrgyz: бадал (ky) (badal)
Lao: ພຸ່ມໄມ້ (phum mai)
Latgalian: kryums
Latin: dūmus m, frutex m
Latvian: krūms (lv) m
Lithuanian: krūmas (lt) m
Livonian: pȭzõ
Low German: Struuk m, Busch m
Luxembourgish: Trausch m, Strauch m
Macedonian: грму́шка f (grmúška), џбун m (džbun)
Malagasy: kirihitra (mg)
Malay: semak (ms), belukar (ms)
Malayalam: കുറ്റിച്ചെടി (ml) (kuṟṟicceṭi)
Maltese: arbuxxell m
Maori: please add this translation if you can
Mapudungun: retron
Mari:
Eastern Mari: вондо (vondo)
Western Mari: тӹшкӓ (tÿškä)
Northern Mansi: нирсяхыл (nirsâhyl)
Norwegian: busk (no) m, buske f, runn m
Occitan: arbust (oc) m
Odia: ବୁଦା (or) (budā)
Old Turkic: 𐰃 (i /⁠ï⁠/)
Pashto: please add this translation if you can
Persian: بوته (fa) (bute)
Plautdietsch: Bosch n
Polish: krzak (pl) m, krzew (pl) m
Portuguese: arbusto (pt) m, moita (pt) f
Punjabi: please add this translation if you can
Romanian: arbust (ro) m, tufă (ro), tufiș de arbuști
Russian: куст (ru) m (kust), куста́рник (ru) m (kustárnik)
Serbo-Croatian:
Cyrillic: грм m, жбун m
Roman: grm (sh) m, žbun (sh) m
Sinhalese: අකුල (akula)
Slovak: ker (sk) m, krík m
Slovene: grm (sl) m
Spanish: arbusto (es) m
Swahili: kichaka (sw)
Swedish: buske (sv) c
Tagalog: palumpong
Tajik: бутта (butta)
Tamil: புதர் (ta) (putar)
Tatar: куак (tt) (quwaq)
Telugu: పొద (te) (poda)
Thai: ไม้พุ่ม (th) (máai-pûm), พุ่ม (th) (pûm)
Turkish: çalı (tr)
Turkmen: gyrymsylyk
Udmurt: куак (kuak)
Ugaritic: 𐎌𐎈𐎚 (šḥt)
Ukrainian: кущ m (kušč)
Urdu: جھاڑی f (jhāṛī)
Uzbek: buta (uz)
Vietnamese: cây bụi
Volapük: bimül (vo)
Walloon: bouxhon (wa) m
Welsh: llwyn (cy) m
Woiwurrung: yerin
Yiddish: קוסט m (kust)
Zulu: isihlahla (zu) class 7/8 :

#### Verb

bush (third-person singular simple present bushes, present participle bushing, simple past and past participle bushed)
* (intransitive) To branch thickly in the manner of a bush.
** 1726, Homer, “The Odyssey”, in Alexander Pope, transl., edited by Samuel Johnson, The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, Esq., published 1839, page 404:Around it, and above, for ever green, / The bushing alders form'd a shady scene.
* To set bushes for; to support with bushes.
    to bush peas
* To use a bush harrow on (land), for covering seeds sown; to harrow with a bush.
    to bush a piece of land; to bush seeds into the ground
* To become bushy (often used with up).
    I can tell when my cat is upset because he’ll bush up his tail.

### Etymology 2

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

#### Noun

bush (plural bushes)
* (archaic) A tavern or wine merchant.

##### Derived terms

* good wine needs no bush

### Etymology 3

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.

#### Noun

bush (countable and uncountable, plural bushes)
* (often with "the") Tracts of land covered in natural vegetation that are largely undeveloped and uncultivated.
** 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:Mad terror had scattered them, men, women, and children, through the bush, and they had never returned.
** (Australia) The countryside area of Australia that is less arid and less remote than the outback; loosely, areas of natural flora even within conurbations.
*** 1894, Henry Lawson, “We Called Him “Ally” for Short”, in Short Stories in Prose and Verse‎: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.
*** 1899, Ethel C. Pedley, Dot and the Kangaroo‎:Little Dot had lost her way in the bush.
*** 2000, Robert Holden, Paul Cliff, Jack Bedson, The Endless Playground: Celebrating Australian Childhood, page 16:The theme of children lost in the bush is a well-worked one in Australian art and literature.
*** 2021 September 6, “Australian farmers under pressure from climate change”, in Australian Herald‎: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.
** (New Zealand) An area of New Zealand covered in forest, especially native forest.
** (Canada) The wild forested areas of Canada; upcountry.
* (Canada) A wood lot or bluff on a farm.
    Synonym: bushlot
    Hyponym: sugarbush

##### Derived terms

* Alaskan bush
* Australian bush hat
* bush ague
* bush aircraft
* bush airline
* bush antelope
* bushbaby
* bush baptist
* bushbash
* bush bread
* bush buggy
* bush camp
* bush clearing
* bush coat
* bush company
* bush country
* bush cowboy
* bushcraft
* bush-crew
* bushed
* bush fever
* bush fire
* bushfire
* bush flier, bush flyer
* bush flying
* bushfood
* bush-French
* bush gang
* bush horse
* bushie
* bush Indian
* bush kanaka
* bush-Kanaka
* bushland
* bush lawyer
* bush-league
* bush lore
* bush lot
* bush mail
* bushmark
* bush meat, bushmeat
* bush partridge
* bush party
* bush people
* bushperson
* bush pig
* bush pilot
* bush plane
* bush-pop
* bush-popper
* bush rabbit
* bush ranch
* bush ranching
* bush-range
* bushranger, bush-ranger
* bushranging
* bush rat
* bush regen
* bush regeneration
* bush road
* bush-rover
* bush-runner
* bush searcher
* bush stone-curlew
* bush tavern
* bush tea
* bush telegraph
* bush-telegraph
* bush trail
* bush tucker
* bushwalk
* bushwalker
* bushwalking
* bush warbler
* bush week
* bushwhack
* bushwhacker
* bushwhacking
* bush-whisky
* bushwoman
* bushwork
* bushworker
* (Canadian, Australian): bushman
* go bush
* send bush
* sugar bush
* take to the bush

##### Related terms

* bushman (not derived from bush but separately derived from cognate Dutch)

##### Descendants

* → Dutch: bush, bushbush

##### See also

* backblock, outback

#### Adverb

bush (not comparable)
* (Australia) Towards the direction of the outback.
    On hatching, the chicks scramble to the surface and head bush on their own.

### Etymology 4

Back-formation of bush league.

#### Adjective

bush (comparative more bush, superlative most bush)
* (colloquial) Not skilled; not professional; not major league.
    They’re supposed to be a major league team, but so far they've been bush.

#### Noun

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

### Etymology 5

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

#### Noun

bush (plural bushes)
* 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.

##### Synonyms

* (washer or cylinder): bushing

##### Related terms

* reducing bush

#### Verb

bush (third-person singular simple present bushes, present participle bushing, simple past and past participle bushed)
* (transitive) To furnish with a bush or lining; to line.
    to bush a pivot hole

### References

* ↑ Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “bush (n.)”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

### Anagrams

* hubs, husb., Shub

## Albanian
### Alternative forms

* bushk

### Etymology 1

Either borrowed through Vulgar Latin from Latin buxus, or from Proto-Indo-European *bʰuH (“to grow”) (compare Dutch bos (“woods”), English bush).

#### Pronunciation

* IPA: /buʃ/

#### Noun

bush m (plural bushe, definite bushi, definite plural bushet)
* (botany) boxwood (Buxus sempervirens)

##### Derived terms

* bushtë
* bushnjesh
* bushk

### Etymology 2

Possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰuH (“to grow”).

#### Noun

bush m (plural busha, definite bushi, definite plural bushat)
* a mythological monster

##### Derived terms

* bushtër

##### Related terms

* bisht

### References

* ↑ Orel, Vladimir E. (1998) “bush”, in Albanian Etymological Dictionary, Leiden, Boston, Köln: Brill, →ISBN, page 42

## Aromanian
### Alternative forms

* bushu, bushtu

### Etymology

Compare Romanian buș.

### Noun

bush m (plural bush) or n (plural bushi/bushe)
* fist

#### Synonyms

* shub, pulmu, huftã, mãnatã

## Burushaski
### Pronunciation

* IPA: [buʃ]

### Noun

bush بشنگو (bushongo) pl
* cat

### See also

* gus bush
* hir bush
* bushe isko

### References

Sadaf Munshi (2015) “Word Lists”, in Burushaski Language Documentation Project‎.

## Middle English
### Alternative forms

* buss, bosh, buish, boish, busk, bosk

### Etymology

From Old English busċ, *bysċ, from Proto-West Germanic *busk. Cognates include Middle Dutch bosch, busch, Middle High German busch, bosch, and also Old French bois, buisson.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /buʃ/

### Noun

bush (plural bushes)
* bush (low-lying plant)

#### Descendants

* English: bush
* Scots: bus
* Yola: bushe

#### References

* “bush, n.(1).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.