William Shakespeare
Synonyms
Noun (1)
Adjective (2)
Examples of bush in a Sentence
Katie Begley, Peoplemag, 10 Nov. 2023
The backyard blooms with several varieties of hydrangea, along with Russian sage, Rose of Sharon, elderberry bushes, crepe myrtle, weeping pine, and monkey puzzle trees.
—Emma Reynolds, Robb Report, 6 Nov. 2023
Don Coryell, who saw an enemy behind every bush, used to put different practice jerseys on his stars for camouflage.
—Nick Canepa, San Diego Union-Tribune, 4 Nov. 2023
Use it to pull leaves out of hard-to-reach spots between flowering bushes, maneuver behind shrubs, and reach into overgrown areas.
—Gabriel Morgan, Better Homes & Gardens, 27 Oct. 2023
There were six or seven rose bushes, with residual flowers, fuchsia-colored, shivering on top of the near-leafless branches.
—Yiyun Li, The New Yorker, 23 Oct. 2023
Mor described seeing hundreds of civilians running for their lives everywhere, through fields, valleys and bushes.
—Gabriele Regalbuto, Fox News, 18 Oct. 2023
Another showed hostages being taken at a kibbutz in the south.
Dazed young Israelis, some of them injured, were still hiding in bushes and orchards in the south as evening approached, stranded after an all-night nature party in a forest.
—Raja Abdulrahim, New York Times, 7 Oct. 2023
Delage remembers it differently, claiming that Wojnarowicz popped out of a bush at the Tuileries Garden, a favorite cruising spot for gay men at the time.
—David O’Neill, The New Yorker, 24 Oct. 2023
Amy Schulman, PEOPLE.com, 10 July 2022
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These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'bush.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Noun (1)
Middle English bussh, bosch, buissh "woods, thicket, underbrush, shrub, underbrush concealing a hunter or fighter," later forms (probably assimilated to an Anglo-French variant of *buis, bois "woodland, wood [the material]" with a final hushing consonant) of boske, buske, going back to Old English *busc, going back to Germanic *buska- (perhaps also beside an earlier u-stem *busku-) (whence also Old Saxon -busc in brāmalbusk "bramble bush," Middle Dutch bosch, busch "forest, bunch, bundle," Old High German busc, bosc "shrub, bramble bush, thicket, grove," Old Swedish buske "bush," Old Norse [Norway] buskær, a nickname, probably "the bushy-haired one," Old Icelandic Buski, name for a dog, probably "the bristly one"), of uncertain origin; (sense 2) probably after Dutch bosch in this sense
Note: The Germanic pedigree of *buska- is relatively meager for the early periods. Old English *busc is perhaps evident in the place name Wardebusc, Veardebusc (modern Warboys in Huntingdonshire), attested in tenth-century charters, though Ekwall (Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names) took it as of Scandinavian origin. The Old High German forms are attested only in glosses from the twelfth century or later. An earlier opinion, propounded in Skeat and the Oxford English Dictionary, first edition, was that the Germanic words were borrowed from "Late Latin"; however, Latin boscus "wood, woodland"—the form buscus is less frequent—is not attested before the early eighth century. The genuine depth of Germanic attestation for *buska- and congeners was thoroughly explicated by Johannes Hubschmied in "Romanisch-germanische Wortprobleme I. Zur Geschichte von bois, bûche (mit Berücksichtigung der Ortsnamen)," Vox Romanica, Band 29 (1970), pp. 82-122, 283-302. There now seems little question that the etymon is Germanic, and that corresponding Romance words are borrowed from Germanic. Note that beside *busk- a form *bosk- is evident in Middle English and elsewhere, especially Romance. Hubschmied explains *busk- as an outcome in an original u-stem, with *bosk- resulting from lowering before a non-high vowel in the next syllable; alternatively, the -u- could simply result from failure of lowering. Also widespread in Middle English, especially east midland and northern, and in early Scots, are forms without palatalized sk, as bosk(e), buske (compare bosky), which have been attributed both to Old Norse and to Anglo-French bosc. See also boiserie, boscage, bosquet and bouquet, and compare ambush entry 1.
Verb
derivative of bush entry 1
Adjective (1)
from attributive use of bush entry 1
Noun (2)
Dutch bus bushing, box, from Middle Dutch busse box, from Late Latin buxis — more at box entry 1
Adjective (2)
short for bush-league
Noun (1)
14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1a
Verb
15th century, in the meaning defined at transitive sense
Adjective (1)
1595, in the meaning defined at sense 1
Noun (2)
1566, in the meaning defined above
Adjective (2)
1959, in the meaning defined above
Phrases Containing bush
Dictionary Entries Near bush
Cite this Entry
“Bush.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bush. Accessed 2 Dec. 2023.
Copy Citation
Kids Definition
bush
noun
Biographical Definition
Bush 1 of 3
biographical name (1)
Bush
2 of 3biographical name (2)
Bush
3 of 3biographical name (3)
1890–1974 American electrical engineer
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Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about bush
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