Woody

a. Forms: 4 wodi, 4, 6 woddy, 6 woddye, wood(d)ye, 6–7 woddie, wood(a)ie, 6–8 wooddy, 6– woody. [f. WOOD sb.¹ + -Y¹.]

  I.  1. Covered or overgrown with wood; having a growth of trees or shrubs; full of or abounding in woods or forests; wooded.

1375.  Barbour, Bruce, IV. 492. In a woddy glen.

1382.  Wyclif, Num. xiii. 20. The erthe, fat, or bareyn, wodi, or with outen trees.

1545.  Brinklow, Compl., iv. (1874), 17. Such heathy, woddy, and moory ground, as is vnfruteful for corne or pasture.

1590.  Spenser, F. Q., II. x. 33. Whence as he to those woodie hils did flie.

a. 1672.  Wood, Life (O.H.S.), II. 134. The said mannour was in antient time, when ’twas wooddy, a stall or den for wild boares.

1788.  Gibbon, Decl. & F., xlii. IV. 250. A small woody island.

1796.  [see WOODINESS 2].

1835.  Thirlwall, Greece, viii. I. 305. The woody mountain tracts.

1842.  Howitt, Rur. & Dom. Life Germany, 251. As we approached, the hills … became wilder and woodier.

1867.  Morris, Jason, XVII. 7. The rose-hung lanes of woody Kent.

  ¶ b.  Bushy.

1609.  Bible (Douay), 2 Kings xvii. 10. They made them statues … under everie thicke woddie tree [Vulg. omne lignum nemorosum].

  † 2.  Belonging to, inhabiting or growing in woods or woodland; sylvan. Obs.

1590.  Spenser, F. Q., I. vi. 18. The wooddy Nymphes, faire Hamadryades.

1599.  T. M[oufet], Silkwormes, 14. The heards of woody outlawes fell.

1610.  G. Fletcher, Christ’s Vict. Earth, vii. A grassie hillock … With woodie primroses befreckeled.

1655.  J. S., Bonarelli’s Filli di Sciro, I. v. 20. Some woody Deity.

  b.  Of, pertaining to, or situated in a wood.

a. 1721.  Prior, Colin’s Mistakes, i. To Wimpole’s woody Shade his Way he sped.

1809.  Coleridge, Three Graves, 495. Deep in a woody dell.

a. 1840.  Joanna Baillie, Verses Kirtled Spring, 17. The woody nook where bells of brighter blue Have clothed the ground.

1911.  Mrs. H. Ward, Case Rich. Meynell, xiv. 288. As they neared the end of the woody path, he looked up again.

  II.  † 3. Made of wood, wooden. Obs. rare.

a. 1540.  Barnes, Images, Wks. (1573), 346/1. Stony & wooddy Images.

1563.  Mirr. Mag., Hastings, xx. In pryson pent, whose woddye walles to passe Of no lesse peryll than the dying was.

  4.  Of the nature of or consisting of wood; of or belonging to the wood as a constituent part of the plant; ligneous.

1597.  Gerarde, Herbal, I. xvi. § 2. 17. Salt Marsh Spike grasse hath a wooddie tough thicke roote.

a. 1704.  Locke, Elem. Nat. Philos., ix. (1754), 33. Herbs are those plants, whose stalks are soft, and have nothing woody in them.

1776.  Withering, Bot. Arrangem., 804. Shrubby, somewhat woody, as the stems of the Rose.

1846.  Zoologist, IV. 1282. The small roots of rose-bushes and of other plants of the same family, sometimes produce rounded, warty, and woody knobs, inhabited by numerous gall-insects.

1859.  Dawson, in Q. Jrnl. Geol. Soc., XV. 630. The long narrow leaves of Sigillaria were strengthened by nerves no doubt composed of scalariform and woody tissue.

1908.  Animal Managem., 87. Fibrous and woody elements … exist in varying proportions in all vegetable foods.

  b.  Of a plant: Of which wood is a constituent part; forming wood; having the stem and branches of wood; woody plant, a tree or shrub, as distinguished from a herb; spec. in distinctive names of particular species, as woody nightshade.

1578.  Lyte, Dodoens, III. lvii. 398. Some Herboristes of Fraunce do cal it Solanum lignosum, that is to say, Wooddy Nightshade.

1796.  Withering, Brit. Plants (ed. 3), II. 48. Hardly to be called herbaceous; it is rather hard and wooddy.

1830.  Lindley, Nat. Syst. Bot., 99. The most northern woody plant … known is a kind of Willow, Salix arctica.

1883.  G. Allen, in Longm. Mag., July, 307. Cinquefoil, grown woodier and more dwarfish from its peculiar upland situation.

  c.  Resembling wood; having the texture or consistence of wood.

1791.  W. Bartram, Carolina, 468. The fruit is a large, round, dry, woody apple … with dry woody cuneiform seed.

1840.  Civil Eng. & Arch. Jrnl., III. 68/2. The coal is not splintered, but rendered tougher, or, in the language of the colliers, more ‘woody.’

1871.  Yng. Gentleman’s Mag., March, 132. An immense woody shell as large as a baby’s head … hanging on one of the lower branches of the very tree on which I was sitting.

  5.  Pertaining to or characteristic of wood; resembling that of wood; having some quality (e.g., the smell) of wood.

1830.  J. G. Strutt, Sylva Brit., 46. A piece of oak,… which,… exposed to the sun and rains for a century,… yet smells woody.

1860.  W. White, All round Wrekin, xi. 100. Their [apples’] substance is as hard as their flavour is woody and sour.

1876.  Morris, Æneids, XII. 782. The gripping woody bite [of an arrow].

1900.  ‘H. S. Merriman,’ Isle of Unrest, ix. Clean woody odours.

  b.  Having a dull sound like that of wood when struck.

1875.  R. H. R., Rambles in Istria, 50. A good campanile … with two sweetly toned bells—why is it that ours are always so unmusical and woody?

1877.  [May Laffan], Honourable Miss Ferrard, I. vii. 241. It was a little cottage piano, woody and dull of tone, and needing all the weight of hand and wrist to force a sound out of the stiff keys.