Forms: 3–7 busk, 4–7 buske; 4 bos(s)ch(e, bossh(e, buss(e, (also bousch(e, boysch, buysch(e), 4–5 busch(e, bussch(e, 4–6 bussh(e, 5 boshe, 6 bushe, buszhe, 5– bush; Sc. 6– bus, buss. [ME. busk, a. ON. busk-r (Da. busk, Sw. buske), cogn. w. OHG. bush (MHG. busch, bosch, Ger. busch), MDu. busc, bosc (Du. bosch, bos), all ad. Rom. bosco or late L. boscum, boscus wood, of which the ulterior source is unknown. Cf. BOSCAGE, BOSK. The form busk is still found in northern dial., but in Sc. is reduced to bus, buss; the buss of the Ayenbite was only Dan Michel’s way of spelling bush with ss for sh.]
1. A shrub, particularly one with close branches arising from or near the ground; a small clump of shrubs apparently forming one plant.
α. Form busk. Obs. exc. dial.
c. 1250. Gen. & Ex., 2779. Vt of ðat busk … God sente an steuene.
1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. XI. 136. Briddes … þat in buskes [1393 C. XIV. 156 bosshes, bussches, busches] made nestes.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 56. Buske or busshe, rubus, dumus.
1549. Compl. Scot., 37. Birdis hoppand fra busk to tuist.
1601. Yarington, Two Lament. Traj., III. ii. in Bullen, O. Pl., IV. Thickets full of buskes.
1670. Ray, Eng. Prov. (1678), 54. Lads’ love’s a busk of broom.
1863. Ld. Lytton, Ring Amasis, II. 211. The old straight carriage-drives … now wind in and out among the busks and thickets.
1855. Whitby Gloss., Busks, bushes.
β. Form bush.
c. 1315. Shoreham, 131. Thou art the bosche of Synay.
1340. Ayenb., 28. Ne in gerse, ne in busse, ne in trauwe.
1382. Wyclif, Luke vi. 44. A boysch [1388 buysche] of breris.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVII. cxl. (1495), 696. A busshe hyghte Rubus.
c. 1420. Pallad. on Husb., I. 87. As plummes boshes are.
1543. Act 35 Hen. VIII., xvii. § 4. Over-grown with Bushes or Under-wood.
1667. Milton, P. L., IV. 176. The undergrowth Of shrubs and tangling bushes.
1864. Tennyson, Grandmother, 40. In the bush beside me chirrupt the nightingale.
γ. Form bus (Sc.).
1528. Lyndesay, Dreme, 62. And flemit Flora frome euery bank and bus.
1768. Ross, Helenore, 26 (Jam.). Upon the busses birdies sweetly sung.
1813. Picken, Poems, 163 (Jam.). I like our hills an’ heathery braes, Ilk burdie, buss, an’ burnie.
Sc. Proverbs. Better a wee buss than nae beild. Ye maun bow to the buss ye get bield frae.
b. Phr. To beat the bush: (lit.) in bat-fowling, to rouse the birds that they may fly into the net held by some one else; (fig.) to expend labor of which the fruit is not gained by oneself. (Cf. BEAT v. 26.) To beat (formerly also go, wend, seek) about the bush: to go indirectly and tentatively towards an object, to avoid coming to the point. Cf. BEAT v. 26 c.)
c. 1440. Generydes, 4524. Some bete the bussh and some the byrdes take.
1520. Whitinton, Vulg. (1527), 1. A longe betynge aboute the busshe and losse of tyme to a yonge begynner.
1553. T. Wilson, Rhet., 1 b. If he utter his mind in plain wordes: and tell it orderly, without goynge about the bushe.
1561. T. Norton, Calvin’s Inst., I. 12. That we shuld not seke about the bush for an vncertaine Godhead.
1658–9. in Burton, Diary (1828), III. 528. We have beaten the bush, and not come plainly to the point.
1705. Vanbrugh, Confed., III. ii. I went round the bush, and round the bush, before I came to the matter.
1819. Blackw. Mag., IV. 621. He never goes about the bush for a phrase.
1822. Hazlitt, Table-t., II. ix. 212. He does not beat about the bush for difficulties or excuses.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev. (1871), II. I. iii. 18. Benighted fowls, when you beat their bushes, rush towards any light.
c. Proverbs.
1599. Sandys, Europæ Spec. (1632), 123. Thus hath every gap his bush, each suspition his prevention.
1600. Holland, Livy, XXIII. iii. 474. Therefore with one bush (as they say) ye are to stop two gaps, and to do both at once.
1638. Sanderson, Serm., II. 97. This common usage of the phrase, as it well preserveth the sence, so doth it also (that I may stop two gaps with one bush) justifie the truth of this charge in my text.
c. 1689. Popish Pol. Unmaskt, 84, in 3rd Coll. Poems (1689), 23/2. With them one Bird in Hand’s worth two i’ th’ Bush.
1875. Jevons, Money (1878), 247. The … chance of receiving gold which is still like the bird in the bush.
2. In northern dialects extended to sub-shrubs as heather, or herbaceous plants growing in a clump, as nettles, ferns, rushes.
1529. Lyndesay, Complaynt, 408. Ihone Vpeland bene full blyith, I trow, Because the rysche bus kepis his kow.
1570. Trag., in Scot. Poems 16th C., II. 232. Than mycht the Rasche bus keip ky on the bordour.
1570–87. Holinshed, Scot. Chron. (1806), II. 96. Caused the rash bush to keep the cow.
1818. Scott, Rob Roy, xxv. The oppressors that hae driven me to tak the heather-bush for a bield.
† 3. collectively. A clump of shrubs, a thicket; bushy ground. (Cf. BOSK 2.) Obs. exc. as reintroduced in sense 9.
1523. Fitzherb., Surv., 2 b. Highe grounde and drie is moost conuenyent for shepe, wode grounde and busshe for beestes.
1580. North, Plutarch (1676), 4. She had hidden herself in a grove … But Theseus finding her, called her … Upon which … she came out of the bush.
a. 1639. Spottiswood, Hist. Ch. Scot., V. (1677), 261. The rest betook them to a little bush of wood, where being environed on all sides, they yielded.
† 4. A clump of shrubs used as a place of concealment; = AM-BUSH, q.v. So to take a bush, to thrust or run one’s head in a bush. Obs.
c. 1330. Arth. & Merl., 8432. In on busse thou the hide.
1375. Barbour, Bruce, VII. 71. [He] stud in-till a busk lurkand.
c. 1380. Sir Ferumb., 2887. Þan schullaþ our men of hem bewar; & breken out of þe bossche.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Knt.’s T., 659. This Palamon Was in a bussh that no man myghte hym se.
a. 1553. Udall, Royster D., I. iv. (Arb.), 28. As the beast passed by, he start out of a buske.
1631. J. Burges, Answ. Rejoined, 52. Hee againe takes a bush, and hides himselfe vnder the ambiguous terme of Religious Ceremonies.
1655. Gurnall, Chr. in Arm., i. (1669), 21/1. Instead of confessing their sins, they run their head in a bush, and by their good will would not come where God is.
b. Beggar’s-bush: see BEGGAR 8.
1600. Shaks., A. Y. L., III. iii. 85. And wil you (being a man of your breeding), be married vnder a bush like a begger?
5. A branch or bunch of ivy (perhaps as the plant sacred to Bacchus) hung up as a vintner’s sign; hence, the sign-board of a tavern.
1532. More, Confut. Tindale, Wks. (1557), 642/1. Set vp for a bare signe, as a tauerners bush or tapsters ale stake.
1591. Florio, 2nd Frutes, 185. Womens beauty … is like vnto an Iuy bush, that cals men to the tauern, but hangs itselfe withoute to winde and wether.
1612. Dekker, If not good Play, Wks. 1873, III. 280. As a drawer in a new Tauern, first day the bush is hung vp.
c. 1613. Rowlands, More Knaues Yet, 36. At next bush and signe Calling for clarret.
1644. Evelyn, Mem. (1857), I. 97. Wicker bottles dangling over even the chief entrance … serving for a vintner’s bush.
1692. in Capt. Smith’s Seaman’s Gram., II. xxxi. 150. You may bind two of them across, like a Tavern-Bush.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., Bush, also denotes a coronated frame of wood hung out as a sign at taverns … antiently, signs where wine was sold were bushes.
1788. H. Walpole, Remin., ix. 71. How should people know where wine is sold, unless a bush is hung out?
b. Hence, the tavern itself.
a. 1625. Beaum. & Fl., Woman’s Prize, III. v. (O.). Twenty to one you find him at the Bush.
1631. Heywood, Maid of West, II. v. Wks. 1874, II. 415. Then will I go home to the bush Where I drew wine.
c. Proverb. Good wine needs no bush.
1600. Shaks., A. Y. L., Epil. If it be true that good wine needs no bush, ’tis true, that a good play needes no Epilogue.
1611. Cotgr., s.v. Bon, Good wine draws customers without any help of an iuy-bush.
1674. R. Godfrey, Inj. & Ab. Physic, 168. As good Wine needs no Bush, no more do good Medicines a printed Bill.
1845. Ford, Handbk. Spain, I. 30. Good wine needs neither bush, herald, nor crier.
1861. W. Thornbury, in Gd. Words, 432. Faded boughs—the bush that good wine does not need—rustle over the door.
d. fig. as To hang out bushes.
1616. Beaum. & Fl., Cust. Country, II. ii. Young women in the old world were not wont, Sir, To hang out gaudy bushes for their beauties.
1643. Sir T. Browne, Relig. Med., II. § 2. In every one of them, some outward figures, which hang as signes or bushes of their inward formes.
e. fig. Boasting, bluster, ‘tall talk.’ U.S. dial.
1837. Haliburton, Clockm. (1862), 450. You Maine folks have been talkin’ a leetle too fast lately, a leetle too much bush.
† 6. transf. Anything resembling a bush; a bushy mass of foliage, feathers, etc.; a bunch. Obs. or dial.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, VII. xii. 77. Amyd a bus of speris in rayd thai.
1530. Palsgr., 202/1. Busshe of oystrisshe fethers, plumart.
1542. Udall, Erasm. Apophth., 296 a. The cypres tree … growyng sharpe with a bushe greate beneth and smal aboue of a trymme facion.
1611. Speed, Hist. Gt. Brit., IX. iii. (1632), 464. In the ninth of his Raigne a blazing Starre appeared with two bushes.
1648. Gage, West Ind., xi. (1655), 40. They put on all their bravery … and bushes of feathers.
7. esp. A bushy head of hair. (Very common in 16th c.: of hair is now expressed.)
1509. Barclay, Ship of Fooles (1570), 232. To hyre the bush of one that late is dead, Therewith to disguise his fooles doting head.
1530. Palsgr., 762. Trymme my busshe, barber.
1609. Bible (Douay), 2 Kings xiv. 26. Once a yeare he was powled, because his bush did burden him.
1640. Sanderson, Serm., 147. A bush of hair will do it, where it groweth.
1719. D’Urfey, Pills, I. 57. He who wears a long bush, All powder’d down from his Pericrane.
a. 1845. Barham, Ingold. Leg., Ser. III. (1858), 508. A continued tuft of coarse, wiry hair … swelled out in a greyish-looking bush above the occiput.
1880. Chamb. Jrnl., 774/2. Their [Bushmen’s] heads are covered with great bushes of wool.
b. occas. of a bushy beard, or eyebrows.
[c. 1400. Ywaine & Gaw., 261. His browes war like litel buskes.]
1647. S. Sheppard, 2d pt. Committee-Man. Curr., I. ii. 2. His chin has no bush, save a little downe.
1859. Tennyson, Vivien, 659. He dragg’d his eyebrow bushes down, and made A snowy penthouse for his hollow eyes.
† 8. A bushy tail, esp. of a fox; = BRUSH sb.2 3 b.
1575. Turberv., Bk. Venerie, 241. The tayle of a foxe is called his Bush.
1577. Dee, Relat. Spir., I. (1659), 113. It seemeth to be a dead Lion; for it hath a long tail with a bush at the end.
1610. Guillim, Heraldry, III. xiv. (1660), 166. Termes of the Tayle, That of a Fox is termed his Bush.
9. (Recent, and probably a direct adoption of the Dutch bosch, in colonies originally Dutch.) Woodland, country more or less covered with natural wood: applied to the uncleared or untilled districts in the British Colonies which are still in a state of nature, or largely so, even though not wooded; and by extension to the country as opposed to the towns.
1780. [cf. bush-cat in 11].
1828. Scott, Tapestr. Chamber. When I was in the Bush, as the Virginians call it.
1837. J. D. Lang, N. S. Wales, I. 253. His house was well enough for the bush, as the country is generally termed in the colony—half-shingled and half-covered with bark.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev. (1871), II. V. iv. 187. The Black man loves the Bush.
1873. Trollope, Australia, I. 299. Nearly every place beyond the influences of the big towns is called ‘bush’ even though there should be not a tree to be seen.
1874. Geikie, Life Woods, ii. 21. Every thing being much cheaper in Toronto than away in the bush.
1886. New Zealand Herald, 2 June, 2/3. There is a bush upon it of 63 acres.
b. To take to the bush.
1837. J. D. Lang, N. S. Wales, II. 15. Four of them immediately take to the bush, i. e. become bush-rangers, or runaway convicts, subsisting on plunder.
10. Attrib. and general Comb.: a. in sense 1, as bush-fagot, -fruit, -ground, -planting, -tuft; bush-grown, -like, -skirted adjs.; b. in senses 7 and 8, as bush-beard, -hair, -head, -tail, -wig; so bush-bearded, -haired, -headed, -tailed adjs.; c. in sense 9 (= ‘in the Bush’), as bush-farm, -farming, -fire, -inn, -land, -life, -rider, -track, -work, BUSH-RANGER.
1606. Sir G. Goosecappe, I. i. in O. Pl. (1884), III. 11. He weares a *bush beard.
1662. Greenhalgh, in Ellis, Orig. Lett., II. 309, IV. 8. A learned Jew with a mighty bush-beard.
1615. A. Stafford, Heav. Dogge, 59–60. What a sight it is to behold an austere *bushbearded Philosopher … quake at the name of death…?
1876. G. Meredith, Beauch. Career, II. i. 13. He was a fair, huge, bush-bearded man.
1843. Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc., IV. II. 292. Two rows of *bush-faggots are laid for perhaps 50 yards in advance on the mud at low water.
1851. [Samuel Sidney], in Househ. Wds., II. 490/2. The white-headed man had been down to the port from his *Bush-farm to sell his stuff.
1863. Mark Lemon, Wait for End, I. x. 243. You may have a very high opinion of … his log house and his *bush-farming.
1868. Dilke, Greater Brit., II. III. iii. 32. The smoke from these *bush-fires sometimes extends for hundreds of miles to sea.
1884. Pall Mall Budget, 22 Aug., 11/1. *Bush fruit, including gooseberries … raspberries, nuts, &c.
1523. Fitzherb., Surv., 34 b. Howe moche wode grounde or *busshe grounde, heythe, lyng, or suche other.
1837. Hawthorne, Amer. Note-Bks. (1871), I. 51. A deep dell, wooded and *bush grown.
1884. M. Pattison, Mem. (1885), 32. The little bush-grown beck which bounded our parish.
1692. Lond. Gaz., No. 2809/4. Another … Man … with small grey Eyes, brown *bush Hair.
1530. Palsgr., 307/1. *Busshe heered, crespelleux.
a. 1603. T. Cartwright, Confut. Rhem. N. T. (1618), 196. Your puppet being lifted aboue the Priests *bush head.
1552. Huloet, *Bussh hedded, or he that hath a good bussh of heare.
1881. Mrs. Praed, Policy & P., I. 59. The driver paused before a *bush inn.
1881. A. C. Grant, Bush-Life Queensland, I. viii. 96. Holding the long sweeping tail, tangled in a huge *bush-knot.
1862. Lytton, St. Story, lxxxvii. All the *Bush-land … was on fire.
1868. Dilke, Greater Brit., II. III. ii. 14. Tropical *bush-lands in which sheep-farming is impossible.
1849. Lytton, Caxtons, II. XVII. ci. The memory of that wild *Bush-life.
1878. Ogle, trans. Kerner’s Flowers & Unbidden Guests, iv. 37. Round the herdsmen’s huts one often sees great *bush-like plants of Senecio cordatus.
1883. Field, 10 Feb., 199. The tremendous stock whips of the Australian *bush-riders.
1858. H. Miller, Sch. & Schm., 313. This woody, *bush-skirted walk.
1606. Wily Beguiled, in Hazl., Dodsley, IX. 290. I might have turned my fair *bushtail to you instead of your father.
1708. Lond. Gaz., No. 4453/3. A … Danish Bitch, with a Black Muzzle, and a long Bush Tail.
1872. W. F. Butler, Gt. Lone Land, xxi. (1873), 339. The *bush-tailed, fox-headed, long-furred, clean-legged animals.
1586. W. Webbe, Eng. Poetrie (Arb.), 77. Fro the sun beames safe lie lyzardes vnder a *bushtufte.
1805. Miniature (1806), No. 34. II. 175. Sober whist is by no means below the dignity of a bush wig.
1830. Galt, Lawrie T., II. xi. (1849), 78. I knew as little of *bush-work as any other store-keeper or mechanic.
1852. Fraser’s Mag., XLV. 240. The sort of service that fits … for the bush-work of the Cape.
Spec. combs.: † bush adder (see quot., and cf. boske addre s.v. BOSK); bush antelope, ? BUSH-BUCK; bush basil, Ocymum minimum; bush-bean, the American name for the Kidney-bean (Phaseolus vulgaris); † bush-bill, ? a bill-hook; bush-cat, the Serval or Tiger-cat of South Africa; bush-chat, a bird, one of the Chats or Saxicolæ; bush-creepers, a group of tropical birds belonging to the family of the Warblers; bush-draining, the draining of land by trenches filled with brushwood; bush-faller, ? one who cuts down timber in the Bush; bush-goat = BUSH-BUCK; bush-grass, Calamagrostis epigejos; bush-hog, a wild pig of South Africa, the bosch-vaark of the colonists; bush-hook, a bill-hook (U.S.); bush-lawyer, the New Zealand Bramble (Rubus australis); bush-master, a very venomous South American snake; bush-quail, a name given to the Turnicidæ, a family of gallinaceous birds; bush-road, a road through the Bush; bush-scythe, a bill-hook; bush-shrike, the English name of the Thamnophilinæ, a sub-family of the Shrikes; bush-sparrow, an American name for a kind of sparrow (see quot.); bush-spider, a large spider of S. America; bush-syrup (see quot.); bush-track = bush-road; † bush-tree, the Box (Buxus sempervirens); bush vetch, Vicia sepium; bush-wood, underwood, brushwood; bush-worm (see quot.). See also BUSH-BUCK, -FIGHTER, etc.
1611. Cotgr., Anguille de bois … the *bush Adder, or wood snake.
1834. Penny Cycl., II. 81/1. The *Bush Antelope (A. silvicultrix), called bush-goat by the English residents at Sierra Leone.
1597. Gerard, Herbal, ccxii. § 3. 547. *Bush Basill, or fine Basill, is a low and base plant.
1631. Gouge, God’s Arrows, V. § 11. 421. Such men are more fit … to carrie a *bush-bill rather then a battell-axe.
1780. Forster, in Phil. Trans., LXXI. 2. The common *Bush-cat of the Cape. Ibid., 3. Kolbe … speaks of a Tyger Bush-cat, which he describes as the largest of all the Wild Cats of the Cape-countries.
1732. De Foe, Tour Gt. Brit. (1769), II. 179. These last cold and wet Lands have been … greatly improved, by draining off the Rain-water … an Invention, called *Bush-draining.
1882. Pall Mall Gaz., 29 June, 2/1. A broken-down, deserted shanty, inhabited once, perhaps, by rail-splitters, or *bush-fallers.
1865. Athenæum, No. 1948. 279/1. A new species of *Bush-goat.
1854. Chamb. Jrnl., I. 66. By good luck we came on a *bush-hog.
1883. E. P. Roe, in Harper’s Mag., Dec., 43–4. Trees and shrubs that that in their earlier life had run the gauntlet of the *bush-hook.
1853. Fraser’s Mag., XLVIII. 258. Half dead with their long struggle against the *‘bush-lawyer,’ a tough and tangled bramble.
1826. Edin. Rev., XLIII. 300. The most venomous of reptiles, and known by the name of the *bush-master.
1860. Gosse, Rom. Nat. Hist., 267. The couni-couchi, or bush-master, is the most dreaded of all the South American snakes.
1857. W. Westgarth, Victoria & Austr. Gold Mines, xi. 250. The gloomy antithesis of good bush-rangers and bad *bush-roads.
1552. Huloet, Byl called a forest bil, or *bush-sithe.
1869. J. Burroughs, in Galaxy Mag., Aug., 173. A favorite sparrow of my own, but little noticed by bird writers, is the wood, or *bush-sparrow, usually called spizella pusilla.
1796. Stedman, Surinam, II. xx. 93. A *bush-spider of such magnitude, that putting him into a case-bottle above eight inches high, he … reached the surface with some of his hideous claws.
1866. Treas. Bot., s.v., *Bush Syrup, a saccharine fluid obtained from the flowers of Protea mellifera, in the Cape Colony.
1864. Reader, 2 April, 420/1. The roads from the nascent metropolis still partook mainly of the random character of *‘bush tracks.’
1595. Duncan, Append. Etym. (E. D. S.), Buxus, the *bush-tree.
1599. Hakluyt, Voy., II. II. 127. A litle way off was a great high bush-tree as though it had no leaues.
1768. Wales, in Phil. Trans., LX. 119. It is entirely covered with low *bush-wood.
1852. Lytton, My Novel, in Blackw. Mag., LXXI. 184. I perceived the form of a man seated amongst the bushwood.
1796. Stedman, Surinam, II. xxiii. 183. I had now extracted out of my right arm two dreadful insects…. These are called in Surinam the *bush-worms, and are the shape and size of the aurelia of the common butterfly, with a pointed tail and black head.
