Forms: 5 brusche, 6 brushe, 6– brush. [ME. brusche, a. OF. brosse, broce, broche brushwood (whence mod.F. broussailles: see BRUSHAL). Diez cites Pr. brossa, Sp. broza, It. brustia, brushwood. Du Cange has med.L. bruscia, brocia, brossia, brozia, brucia, all in same sense. Diez takes the late L. type as *brustia, and refers it to OHG. burst, bursta bristle; cf. MHG. bürste brush. If his conjectures are correct, brosse ‘brush’ and brosse ‘brushwood’ were originally identical; but as their history in English shows no contact, it appears better here to treat them apart: see BRUSH sb.2]
1. a. Loppings of trees or hedges; cut brushwood (now in U.S.). b. A fagot or bavin of such brushwood. (Cf. BRASH sb.2)
c. 1330. R. Brunne, Chron. (Rolls Ser.), 8338. Þey comaunded to al men lyk Wiþ brusch to come, & fylle þe dyk.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 54. Brusche, bruscus.
1530. Palsgr., 201/2. Brushe to make brushes on, brvyère.
1655. Gurnall, Chr. in Arm., xiii. 218/2. One sin helps to kindle another; the less the greater, as the brush the loggs.
1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Brush, a small Faggot, to light the other at Taverns.
1732. De Foe, Tour Gt. Brit. (1769), I. 139 (D.). Small light Bavins … are called in the Taverns, a Brush.
1830. in W. Cobbett, Rur. Rides (1885), II. 298. [To] supply the farm with poles and brush, and with everything wanted in the way of fuel.
1830. Galt, Lawrie T., III. ii. (1849), 86. The two boys would be found serviceable, either in collecting the brush, or in burning off the logs.
1860. Bartlett, Brush, for brushwood, is an Americanism, and … comprises also branches of trees.
1880. W. Cornwall Gloss. (E.D.S.), Brush, dried furze used for fires.
2. The small growing trees or shrubs of a wood; a thicket of small trees or underwood. (Esp. in U.S., Canada and Australia.)
c. 1440–1530. [see sense 1].
1553. Brende, Q. Curtius, P j. The inhabiters of the contrey were accustumed to creape emonges the brushe like wild beastes.
1613. Sylvester, Elegie Sir W. Sidney. Brush and Bryars (good for nought at all).
1702. Eng. Theophrast., 374. You shall never have clean underwood, but shrubs and brushes.
1766. C. Beatty, Two Months’ Tour (1768), 35. Grown up … with small brush, or under-wood.
1789. Wolcott (P. Pindar), Sir J. Banks & Emp. Morocco. Mindless of trees, and brushes, and the brambles.
1820. Oxley, N. S. Wales. The timber standing at wide intervals, without any brush or undergrowth. Ibid. These plains or brushes are swamps in wet weather.
† 3. Stubble. Obs. or dial.
1679. Plot, Staffordsh. (1686), 343. They sowe wheat again, upon the brush (as they call it) i. e. upon the peas stubble.
1790. Marshall, Midl. Counties, II. Gloss., Brush, stubble; as a wheat-brush.
4. Comb., as brush-fagot, -heap, -pile; also brush-apple, ‘the native Australian wood of Achras australis’ (Treas. Bot.); † brush-bill, a bill for cutting brushwood; brush-bush, a shrub (Euryphia pinnata) having pinnate leaves and single white flowers; brush-cherry, ‘the native Australian wood of Trochocarpa laurina’ (Treas. Bot.); brush-kangaroo, a species of kangaroo inhabiting the Australian ‘brush’; brush-puller, a machine for pulling up brushwood by the roots; brush-scythe, a scythe or sickle on a shaft for cutting brushwood; brush-turkey, an Australian bird (Talegalla Lathami); brush-turnip (see quot.).
1588. R. Parke, trans. Mendoza’s China, 65. Pikes, targets, faunchers, *brushebilles, holbards.
1606. Sir G. Goosecappe, III. i. in Bullen, O. Pl. (1884), III. 44. She had as lieve be courted with a *brush faggot as with a Frenchman.
1767. A. Young, Farmer’s Lett., 230. The fire-wood was most of it … brush-faggots out of a wood, and but few of the small bush-faggots.
1809. W. Irving, Knickerb. (1861), 141. He was a perfect *brush-heap in a blaze.
1830. Proc. R. Geog. Soc., I. 29. These dogs … are particularly useful in catching the bandicoots, the small *brush kangaroo, and the opossum.
1865. Mrs. Whitney, Gayworthys, II. 257. The very chickens run under the fences and the *brushpile.
1573. Tusser, Husb., xvii. (1878), 37. A *brush sithe and grasse sithe.
1799. J. Robertson, Agric. Perth, 110. To sow … *brush turnips, which are not expected to produce any roots, but in the months of March and April afford an excellent food for ewes and lambs.
1847. Carpenter, Zool., § 435. Termed … the *Brush Turkey, on account of the wattles with which its neck is furnished.
1851. W. J. Broderip, Leaves fr. Note Bk. Nat. (1852), 139. The brush-turkey belongs to a family of birds … which never incubate, but … leave their eggs to the genial warmth of this half-natural, half-artificial mother.
