greenwood
Part of speech: noun
Morphological type: compound
Etymology: From Middle English grene wode (“a forest that is leafed out, a greenwood" also "unseasoned firewood”), equivalent to green + wood.
Compound parts: green
wood
Inflected forms:
form: greenwoods
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: green-wood
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: greenewood
pos: noun
tags: alternative
Senses:
gloss: A forest in full leaf, as in summer.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: Within a greenewood ſweet of mirtle ſauor, when as the earth was with fayre flowers reuested, I ſaw a ſhepherd, with his Nymph that reſted, […]
Vnder the greene wood tree, / Who loues to lye with mee, / And turne his merrie Note, / Vnto the ſweet Birds throte: / Come hither, come hither, come hither: / Heere ſhall he ſee no enemie, / But Winter and rough Weather.
But Calipine, now being left alone / Under the greenewood’s ſide in ſorie plight, / Withouten armes or ſteede to ride upon, / Or houſe to hide his head from heaven’s ſpight, […]
We who walk the greenwood do many a wild deed, and the Lady Rowena’s deliverance may be received as an atonement.
The good green-wood! the good green-wood! / Where early violets spring, / Where 'mid the old oak's giant boughs / The merle and mavis sing, […] My dreams are of sweet music wild / Beneath the green-wood tree!
Warwickshire is, indeed, a county of Gospel Oaks, and many of these, like the others, are huge in growth and venerable in years. They formed the boundary lines or marks between adjoining parishes, and when the bounds were beaten the parson was wont to deliver his homily beneath the shady boughs. From this circumstance the trees have taken the name of “Gospel Oaks,” and though Time has somewhat thinned their number, there are many still existing, dotted about in various parts of this sequestered greenwood.
In a number of families, brothers joined opposite sides. Some fought on the communist side as guerrillas and assassinated their blood brothers who held jobs on village committees. Others who served the village militias shot and killed their siblings who came back from secret guerrilla bases in the greenwoods.
When they were young, he kissed her in the greenwood. When she brushes her fingers across her lips, she still remembers.
gloss: Wood that is green; in other words, not seasoned.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: For the Spleene. 58 R. Aſhen keyes, and the Greenewood, burne them, & make Lye of the Aſhes: […]
In severe winters, when pressed by hunger, they [the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego] sacrifice the oldest women of their party—holding the head of the sufferer over a fire made of greenwood, to produce suffocation.
From the 1920s onwards a new tier of timber merchants arose, causing the separation of the primary source, the forest, from the woodworker. Wood in its raw state became devalued, whereas seasoned wood processed into planks or blanks, could command high prices. Never again would the two extremes meet until the birth of what became known as the ‘greenwood movement’ in the 1970s. […] Many people attending a greenwood course never made more than one chair. But some people became so inspired they set up their own workshops in garages and back rooms.
gloss: Certain half-shrubby species of genista.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
Translations: