pleach
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: plēch
ipa: /pliːtʃ/
ipa: /plit͡ʃ/
rhymes: -iːtʃ
Forms: form: pleaches
form: pleaching
form: pleached
form: pleached
Etymology: The verb is from Late Middle English pleshe, Middle English plechen, pleche (“to layer; to propagate (a plant) by layering, to pleach”), possibly from Anglo-Norman and Middle French plesser, plessier, Middle French plescer, variants of Middle French, Old French plaissier, plessier (“to plash”), from Late Latin *plaxus, from Latin plexus (“braided, plaited, woven; bent, twisted”), perfect passive participle of plectō (“to braid, plait, weave; to bend, turn, twist”).
The noun is derived from the verb.
Senses: examples: text: Her Vine, the merry chearer of the heart, / Vnpruned, dyes: her Hedges euen pleach'd, / Like Priſoners wildly ouer-growne with hayre, / Put forth diſorder'd Twigs: [...]
ref: 1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii], page 92, column 2:
english: Her [France's] vine [i.e. grapevines which produce wine], the merry cheerer of the heart / Unpruned, dies; her hedges, though [once] evenly pleached, / Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair, / Put forth disordered twigs; …
translation: Her [France's] vine [i.e. grapevines which produce wine], the merry cheerer of the heart / Unpruned, dies; her hedges, though [once] evenly pleached, / Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair, / Put forth disordered twigs; …
bold_translation_offsets: 140
148
text: Nectar ran / In courteous fountains to all cups outreach'd; / And plunder'd vines, teeming exhaustless, pleach'd / New growth about each shell and pendent lyre; [...]
ref: 1818, John Keats, “Book III”, in Endymion: A Poetic Romance, London: […] T[homas] Miller, […] for Taylor and Hessey, […], →OCLC, page 149, lines 932–935:
text: The season in which to pleach is not when the hedge is growing, but in the fall, between the falling of the leaves and the time when winter sets in. Osage thorn hedge should not be pleached during severe freezing weather, but pleaching may be done in mild weather, when there is but little frost in the wood, and in the winter in southern latitudes. In the northern belt, where the Osage thorn thrives, which is as far north as southern Wisconsin, it is not safe to pleach in winter.
ref: 1868, “Osage Hedges”, in Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture for the Year 1868, Washington, D.C.: U. S. Government Printing Office, published 1869, →OCLC, page 255:
text: [I]n Messina, he pleaches Leonato's bower with honeysuckle; [...]
ref: 1878 September 21, “How Their Gardens Grow in North America”, in Charles Dickens, Jr., editor, All the Year Round, A Weekly Journal. [...] With which is Incorporated Household Words, volume XXI, number 512 (New Series), London: Published at No. 26, Wellington Street; and by Messrs. Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC, page 271, column 1:
text: In the southern and western districts of the county [Shropshire], a hatchet used by farmers and gardeners is called a "brummuck." [...] "Pleaching" hedges, a task needing much skill, is done with brummucks.
ref: 1908 July 22, “Radymadasy” [pseudonym], “Queries. [The Dialect of Shropshire.]”, in Bye-gones: Relating to Wales and the Border Counties, volume X (New Series), Oswestry, Shropshire; Wrexham, Denbighshire: Woodall, Minshall, Thomas and Co.; London: Elliot Stock […], →OCLC, page 260, column 1:
text: Here the reed warblers swing their dainty cradle, rocked by every gust which sways the tall reeds which they cunningly pleach and plait into its fragile sides, but woven deep enough to guard their tiny green and brown marbled eggs from accident.
ref: 1910 September 10, “The Open Life. Birds of the Lakes and Meres.”, in The Outlook: A Weekly Review of Politics, Art, Literature, and Finance, volume XXVI, number 658, London: The Outlook Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 361, column 2:
text: You finish your A levels, you are so busy discovering yourself that you forget to go to college or get a vocation, you start working in a pub, and, when your best and only friend leaves town, you become a loner and invest yourself in things that rely little on the company of others, like pleaching willow and learning how to slum it comfortably under the stars, and singing.
ref: 2014, Samantha Harvey, Dear Thief, London: Jonathan Cape, →ISBN; republished London: Vintage Books, 2015, →ISBN, page 59:
synonyms: entwine
interlace
plait
glosses: To unite by interweaving, as (horticulture) branches of shrubs, trees, etc., to create a hedge; to interlock, to plash.
Derived terms: word: impleach
word: pleached
word: pleacher
word: pleaching