sagebrush

noun

sage·​brush ˈsāj-ˌbrəsh 

: any of several North American hoary composite subshrubs (genus Artemisia)

especially : one (A. tridentata) having a bitter juice and an odor resembling sage and often covering vast tracts of alkaline plains in the western U.S.

Examples of sagebrush in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Blocky towers vault from the sand and sagebrush to pierce a tall sky. —Roger Naylor, AZCentral.com, 29 Aug. 2025

The meeting was held in a squat building in the middle of the sagebrush-steppe landscape. —Antonia Hitchens, New Yorker, 25 Aug. 2025

Mesquite and sagebrush dot the sandstone cliffs. —Rona Berg, Forbes.com, 12 Aug. 2025

Then, northeast of the city near a place called Dry Lake, on a valley slope tilted toward the rising sun and dotted with sagebrush and red barrel cacti, MGM teamed up with a solar energy company to build an array of 322,000 panels. —Max Bearak, New York Times, 24 June 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1850, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for sagebrush

• underbrush
• airbrush
• hairbrush
• inrush
• onrush
• paintbrush
• blush
• brush
• crush
• flush
• gush
• hush

Kids Definition

sagebrush

noun

sage·​brush ˈsāj-ˌbrəsh 

: any of several low shrubby North American plants related to the daisies

especially : a common plant with a bitter juice that smells like sage and is widespread on the plains of the western U.S.