as in grove
a thick patch of shrubbery, small trees, or underbrush
the rabbit darted into the chaparral
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of chaparral
The weaker tail of the river will pass through San Diego County, soaking chaparral in the backcountry and causing the risk of wildfires to plummet, forecasters said.
—
Gary Robbins, San Diego Union-Tribune, 12 Nov. 2025
The strategy has helped to transform land that’s naturally an arid mix of coastal sage and chaparral and deserts into an economic and cultural powerhouse.
—Andre Mouchard, Oc Register, 24 Aug. 2025
It's been fueled by a mix of timber, chaparral and brush.
—Helen Rummel, AZCentral.com, 14 Aug. 2025
The Pacific Palisades Fire, the largest of the state’s current wildfires, for example, began as a brushfire and spread through dense chaparral, a shrubland plant community common to the state.
—Jeff Cercone, Austin American Statesman, 7 Jan. 2025
See All Example Sentences for chaparral
Gary Robbins, San Diego Union-Tribune, 12 Nov. 2025
The strategy has helped to transform land that’s naturally an arid mix of coastal sage and chaparral and deserts into an economic and cultural powerhouse.
—Andre Mouchard, Oc Register, 24 Aug. 2025
It's been fueled by a mix of timber, chaparral and brush.
—Helen Rummel, AZCentral.com, 14 Aug. 2025
The Pacific Palisades Fire, the largest of the state’s current wildfires, for example, began as a brushfire and spread through dense chaparral, a shrubland plant community common to the state.
—Jeff Cercone, Austin American Statesman, 7 Jan. 2025
See All Example Sentences for chaparral
Recent Examples of Synonyms for chaparral
Noun
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Carmel-by-the-Sea and its gallery scene are a short drive south, while Pacific Grove offers Victorian architecture and monarch butterfly groves.—
Audrey T. Williams,
Mercury News,
26 Jan. 2026
-
Outside are a kitchen, firepit, mature tree groves, ponds, a stream, meadows, and a heated driveway and sidewalks.—
The Week US,
TheWeek,
26 Jan. 2026
Noun
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These king cobras prefer the cool, rainy montane forests along Goa’s eastern border, not the dry, lowland western part of the state, says study co-author Hinrich Kaiser, a herpetologist at Victor Valley College in California.—
Richard Kemeny,
Scientific American,
6 Feb. 2026
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When medicine can't treat her cancer, a dying youngster (Zelda Adams) reaches out to a forest witch (Toby Poser) who uses dark magic to cheat death, but there's a serious cost involved in this rich and artfully crafted scary movie.—
Brian Truitt,
USA Today,
6 Feb. 2026
Noun
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There, detectives observed the men walking into an open space, crouching in nearby bushes and then fleeing the area at a high rate of speed in a vehicle, police said.—
Sydney Barragan,
Oc Register,
29 Jan. 2026
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Divided into five ‘rooms,’ the walled garden features over 1,000 rose bushes, an herb garden, a fruit and flower garden, an organic vegetable garden, and a white garden with a water feature.—
Bailey Bujnosek,
InStyle,
29 Jan. 2026
Noun
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This wonderful, hardy, and disease-resistant tree gradually develops into a beautiful understory thicket, providing habitat for wildlife.—
SJ McShane,
Martha Stewart,
21 Jan. 2026
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The plant in question actually consists of 70 Jurupa oak (Quercus palmeri) stem clusters, only three feet tall, that stand together as a flowering, non-acorn producing clonal colony in the form of a thicket, 82 feet long by 26 feet wide, estimated to be at least 13,000 years old.—
Joshua Siskin,
Oc Register,
17 Jan. 2026
Noun
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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
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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.—
Azera Parveen Rahman,
Quartz,
27 Oct. 2022
Noun
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Walk in forests where dragonflies buzz and orchids bloom in secret copses.—
Lydia Bell,
Condé Nast Traveler,
22 Jan. 2026
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Except for two copses of skyscrapers in which our financiers—and finances—go up and down, London remains a fairly horizontal city.—
Ed Caesar,
New Yorker,
2 Nov. 2025
Noun
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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
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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
Noun
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Then Goodell pumped the brakes on a full investigation of the matter and on Tisch possibly facing discipline under the league’s personal conduct policy.—
Pat Leonard,
New York Daily News,
3 Feb. 2026
-
Brake gently as needed - Brake normally if the vehicle has anti-lock brakes and pump brakes gently if in an older vehicle.—
NC Weather Bot,
Charlotte Observer,
1 Feb. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Chaparral.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/chaparral. Accessed 7 Feb. 2026.
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