bush

Meanings

Noun

• 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.
• A shrub cut off, or a shrublike branch of a tree.
• 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.
• A person's pubic hair, especially a woman's.
• The tail, or brush, of a fox.
• A tavern or wine merchant.
• Tracts of land covered in natural vegetation that are largely undeveloped and uncultivated.
• A woodlot or bluff on a farm.
• Amateurish behavior, short for "bush league behavior"
• 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.

Verb

• To branch thickly in the manner of a bush.
• To set bushes for; to support with bushes.
• To use a bush harrow on (land), for covering seeds sown; to harrow with a bush.
• To become bushy (often used with up).
• To furnish with a bush or lining; to line.

Adverb

• Towards the direction of the outback.

Adjective

• Not skilled; not professional; not major league.

Related

Similar words

• shrub
• bushing

Origin

• Image:Buxus sempervirens 2.jpg|thumb|right|A bush (woody plant)
• From Middle English bush, from Old English busċ, *bysċ, from Proto-West Germanic *busk, from Proto-Germanic *buskaz, probably from Proto-Indo-European *bʰuH-.
• Cognate with West Frisian bosk, Dutch bos, German Busch, Danish and Norwegian busk, Swedish buske, Persian بیشه. 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. The sense 'pubic hair' was first attested in 1745.
• From the sign of a bush usually employed to indicate such places.
• From older Dutch bosch (modern bos), 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.
• From Middle Dutch busse, from Proto-West Germanic *buhsā. More at box.