Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of canebrakeThis is rural Richland Parish, once a floodplain tangled with meandering bayous and wild canebrake where black bears still wander and a quarter of the 20,000 residents live below the poverty line.—Delaney Nolan, Fortune, 24 Aug. 2025 Extinguishing their patrol lights and flipping on their headlamps, the Slaughterhouse men patrolled the canals with shotguns cocked, leaping from the boat to grab their dead and pursue their wounded through the canebrake.—Nathaniel Rich, Harpers Magazine, 20 Aug. 2025 Of the 46 species of snakes known in Georgia, only six are venomous: copperhead, cottonmouth, Eastern diamondback rattlesnake, timber/canebrake rattlesnake, pigmy rattlesnake and Eastern coral snake.—Nancy Clanton, ajc, 20 Apr. 2023 According to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, the timber rattlesnake — also called the American viper, black rattlesnake, eastern rattlesnake, timber rattler and canebrake — is a large pit viper with a wide distribution across the eastern half of the U.S.—Muri Assuncao New York Daily News (tns), al, 14 Aug. 2022 The forest hid behind pioneer vegetation, the same canebrakes and cecropia trees over and over.—Nell Zink, Harper's magazine, 28 Oct. 2019 Those that are venomous include the diamondback rattlesnake, canebrake rattlesnake, pigmy rattlesnake, the copperhead, and cottonmouth or water moccasin.—Wayne K. Roustan, sun-sentinel.com, 10 July 2019
To the northwest, a tangled and primordial thicket flourished.
—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
23 Feb. 2026
Robert’s large property borders a clear cut — a clearing where a pine thicket had been cut down in the summer of 2009 — leaving behind a mess of tree stumps and roots.
Along the way, hikers are surrounded by mafic southern mixed chaparral, a unique type of chaparral vegetation that is found in mafic soils, which are rich in magnesium and iron.
—
Maura Fox,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
6 Feb. 2026
In the hills, in the hollows, up the draws and the old dirt logging roads, hidden in the chaparral above the fog line, growing and selling weed became a way of life, woven into the community and its economy.
During one expedition to what was once London, a young scientist, out gathering brushwood, unearths a small vacuum flask, inside which is a handwritten account of life in a small village called Beadle during the days leading up to the lunar catastrophe.
—
Michael Dirda,
Washington Post,
2 Feb. 2023
Bare dunes were planted with ‘brushwood and windbreaks, perpendicular to wind direction’ so that the dunes do not interfere with the canal system and irrigated farmlands.
The two most straightforward of the trials will involve large-scale planting of trees and bioenergy crops, including Miscanthus grasses and coppice willow, reports Robert Lea for AZoCleanTech.
—
Alex Fox,
Smithsonian Magazine,
27 May 2021
Another strategy, called short rotation coppice, involves planting fast-growing trees such as willows and poplars in extremely dense rows.
—
Eric Toensmeier,
Scientific American,
1 Aug. 2020
Captured by the photographer Lee Jaffe in 1983, Basquiat wears a wide-brimmed hat against a blue summer sky, a copse of softly out-of-focus trees visible in the background.
—
Laura May Todd,
Vogue,
25 Feb. 2026
Walk in forests where dragonflies buzz and orchids bloom in secret copses.
Vehicles produced on the validation line are assigned to testing programs, including thermal validation, brake performance evaluation, and destructive testing.
—
Jijo Malayil,
Interesting Engineering,
4 Mar. 2026
Ultimately, one driver brake-checked the other, slamming his brakes so the tailgater would crash into him.
—
Rose Evans
Updated March 3,
Idaho Statesman,
3 Mar. 2026