Forest sb.

Also 4–5 foreste, (5 foreist, -eyst, Sc. forast), 6–7 forrest. [a. OF. forest (Fr. forêt), ad. med.L. forest-em (silvam) the ‘outside’ wood (i.e., that lying outside the walls of the park, not fenced in), f. forīs out of doors.]

  1.  An extensive tract of land covered with trees and undergrowth, sometimes intermingled with pasture. Also, the trees collectively of a ‘forest.’

a. 1300.  Cursor M., 3607 (Cott.).

	Þou ert schotter wit þe beist,
	Bath in feild and in forest.

c. 1350.  Will. Palerne, 3.

	His bi-fel in þat forest · þere fast by-side,
	þer woned a wel old cherl · þat was a couherde.

c. 1440.  Ipomydon, 369.

	With youre houndis more and lesse,
	In the forest to take my grese.

a. 1631.  Donne, Paradoxes (1652), 75. There was no way known to win a Lady but by Tylting, Turnying, and riding through Forrests, in which time these slender striplings with little legs were held but of strength enough to marry their widows.

1639.  S. Du Verger, trans. Camus’ Admir. Events, 23. To have acknowledged their victories with Crowns, a Forrest of Laurell would scarce have sufficed.

1730–46.  Thomson, Autumn, 320.

	Strain’d to the root, the stooping forest pours
	A rustling shower of yet untimely leaves.

1799.  H. T. Colebrooke, in Life (1873), 410. The prevalence of forest renders Bejeygerh a very unwholesome spot.

1835.  W. Irving, A Tour on the Prairies, xvii. 149. In an instant he was whisked away over prairies, and forests, and streams, and deserts, until he was flung senseless at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, from whence, on recovering, it took him several months to return to his own people.

1860.  Tyndall, Glac., I. xxvii. 196. The black pine forests on the slopes of the mountains stood out in strong contrast to the snow; and, when looked at through the spaces enclosed by the tree branches at either side of the road, they appeared of a decided indigo-blue.

  transf. and fig.  1602.  Shaks., Ham., III. ii. 286. Would not this Sir, and a Forrest of Feathers, if the rest of my Fortunes turne Turke with me; with two Provinciall Roses on my rac’d Shooes, get me a Fellowship in a crie of Players sir.

1627.  Drayton, Agincourt, clxxvii.

	Vpon these French our Fathers wan renowne,
	And with their swords we’ll hewe yan Forrest downe.

1645.  Fuller, Good Th. in Bad T. (1841), 43. Coming at last to London (that forest of people) he broke his cane in pieces, perceiving the impossibility of his employment.

1669.  Dryden, Tyrannic Love, I. i. Wks. 1883, III. 304.

	There with a Forest of their Darts he strove;
	And stood like Capaneus defying Jove.

1784.  Cowper, Task, IV. 74.

	There forests of no meaning spread the page
	In which all comprehension wanders lost.

1867.  A. Barry, Sir Charles Barry, iii. 70. In his last work at the New Palace at Westminster, as soon as he felt himself ‘master of the situation,’ the castellated character of the original design faded away, and a forest of spires sprang up, which he at times longed to complete by some spire-like erection on the Victoria Tower itself.

1875.  E. White, Life in Christ, IV. xxvii. (1876), 475. A whole forest of verbal arguments opposing the idea of the actual eternity of all men.

  b.  In Great Britain, the name of several districts formerly covered with trees, but now brought more or less under cultivation, always with some proper name attached, as Ashdown, Ettrick, Sherwood, Wychwood Forest.

  2.  Law. A woodland district, usually belonging to the king, set apart for hunting wild beasts and game, etc. (cf. quots. 1598 and 1628); having special laws and officers of its own.

1297.  R. Glouc. (1724), 375.

	Vor to wende an honteþ, in þe nywe forest,
	Þat was in Souþamtessyre.

c. 1425.  Wyntoun, Cron., VII. iv. 28.

	For in huntyng as he past
	On a day in þe Neu Forast,
	Wyth a rekles schot off cas
	A knycht hym slwe at þe wanlas.

1494.  Fabyan, Chron. (1811), 356. Rad a charter of pardon concernyng y^e sayd cause, & confirmacon of y^e statutes of y^e forest w^t many other actes & statutes before graunted of the kyng.

1598.  Manwood, Lawes Forest, i. § 1. 1 a. A Forrest is certen Territorie of wooddy grounds & fruitfull pastures, priuiledged for wild beasts and foules of Forrest; Chase and Warren, to rest and abide in, in the safe protection of the King, for his princely delight and pleasure.

1628.  Coke, On Litt., § 378. A Forest and Chase are not, but a Parke must bee inclosed. The Forrest and Chase doe differ in Offices and Lawes: euery Forest is a Chase, but euery Chase is not a Forrest.

1674.  N. Cox, Gentl. Recreat., I. (1677), 21–2. A Chase, is a place used for the receipt of Deer and Beasts of the Forest: It differs from a Forest and Park. It may be in the hands of a Subject, which a Forest in its proper nature cannot be.

1767.  Blackstone, Comm., II. 414. The forests … having never been disposed of in the first distribution of lands, were therefore held to belong to the crown.

1883.  F. Pollock, Land Laws, ii. 40. The presence of trees, I need hardly say, is not required to make a forest in this sense. The great mark of it is the absence of enclosures.

2021.  Jack Lynch, in Dictionaries, XLII. No. 2, 193. The entry for forest [in the OED], for example--as I write, still unrevised--has no citations from after 1883.

  † 3.  A wild uncultivated waste, a wilderness.

c. 1320.  The Seuyn Sages (W.), 845.

	Withouten leue of wif and child,
	And wente into a forest wild,
	Into desert fram alle men.

c. 1511.  1st Eng. Bk. Amer. (Arb.), Introd., p. xxxiii/1. In our lande is also a grete deserte or forest therin dweleth people bothe men and wymmen the whyche haue nomore than one eye afore, and behinde they haue iij. or iiij. eyen.

1578.  Lyte, Dodoens, II. xxix. 182. Therefore we haue named them Camomill of the Forest, or wildernesse.

1659.  D. Pell, Impr. Sea, Proem, B iij b. Away she betakes her self into the great and wide Forrest of the Sea.

  4.  attrib. and Comb. a. simple attrib., as forest-administration, -alley, -bough, -brother, -craft, -deep, -floor, -foik, -fruit, -glade, -hearse, -house, -land, -lawn, -leaf, -life, -lodge, -lord, -matter, -nymph, -path, -ridge, -rights, -road, -shade, -sheriff, -side, -skirt, -sport, -steading, -stream, -top, -walk, -wood. Also forest-like adj.

1838.  Penny Cycl., X. 359/2. The laws and regulations of *forest administration.

1844.  Clough, Wirkung in der Ferne, Remains (1869), II. 35.

	In perspective, brief, uncertain,
	Are the *forest-alleys closed
	And to whispers indistinctest
	The resounding torrents lulled.

1727–46.  Thomson, Summer, 296.

	The *Forest-Boughs,
	That dance unnumber’d to the playful Breeze.

a. 1835.  Mrs. Hemans, Last Constantine, xc. Poems (1849), 232.

	Now is he battling midst a host alone,
	As the last cedar stems awhile the sway
	Of mountain storms, whose fury hath o’erthrown
	Its *forest-bretheren in the green array!

1894.  Academy, XLVI. 8 Sept., 175/3. The influence of German *forest-craft is seen in every page of this book.

1842.  Tennyson, Sir Lancelot, 5.

	In crystal vapour everywhere
	Blue isles of Heaven laugh’d between,
	And, far in *forest-deeps unseen,
	The topmost linden gather’d green
	From draughts of balmy air.

1864.  Lowell, Fireside Trav., 10. A gray, soft mass of ashes grew betimes, mocking the poor wood with a pale travesty of that green and gradual decay on *forest-floors, its natural end.

1847.  Mary Howitt, Ballads, etc., 125.

	And the *forest-folk they sing their songs
	All in the forest dim;
	And whenever a wandering harper comes,
	I learn a deal from him.

1697.  Dryden, Virg. Georg., I. 221.

	When now Dodonian Oaks no more supply’d
	Their Mast, and Trees their *Forest-fruit deny’d.

1727–46.  Thomson, Summer, 57.

	Along the *Forest-glade
	The wild Deer trip.

1820.  Keats, Isabella, xliii.

	Resolv’d, she took with her an aged nurse,
	And went into that dismal *forest-hearse.

1646.  Buck, Rich. III., 118. He was fain to take an ordinary Priest to marry them, in a Chamber too, in stead of a Church, and that in a Lodge, or *Forest-house.

1649.  Milton, Eikon., Wks. (1847), 296/2. Thir possessions also tak’n from them, one while as *Forrest Land, another while as Crown-Land.

1809.  Wordsw., Sonn., ‘Advance—come forth.’

	Like Echo, when the hunter train at dawn
	Have roused her from her sleep: and *forest-lawn,
	Cliffs, woods and caves, her viewless steps resound
	And babble of her pastime!

1727–46.  Thomson, Summer, 1106.

	Save the dull Sound
	That from the Mountain, previous to the Storm,
	Rolls o’er the muttering Earth, disturbs the Flood,
	And stirs the *Forest-Leaf without a Breath.

1880.  C. R. Markham, Peruv. Bark, 165. From this, the first day of our *forest-life, until the 14th of May, being just a fortnight, we were actively engaged in the examination of the chinchona region, and in the collection of plants.

1611.  Cotgr., Forestier, woodie, *forrest-like.

1824.  Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. I. (1863), 46. All is beautiful that the eye can see; perhaps the more beautiful for being shut in with a forest-like closeness.

1847.  Mary Howitt, Ballads, etc., 147.

	My mother she loves that *forest-lodge;
	She there was born and bred,
	And there the white does used to come
	To my grandsire to be fed.

a. 1847.  Eliza Cook, There Would I be, iv.

	Where the dark *forest-lords tangle their boughs,
	And close-shadowed dew-drops are sparkling at noon;
	Where gipsy bands linger, to sleep and carouse
	In the covert that shuts out the winds and the moon.

1659.  Rushw., Hist. Coll., III. (1692), I. 129. He was the same day voted a Traytor…. For several Illegal Actions in *Forest-matters [printed marters].

1612.  Drayton, Poly-olb., ii. 25.

	So pleasantlie in-Il’d on mightie Neptunes marge,
	A *Forest-Nymph, and one of chaste Dianas charge.

1821.  Mrs. Hemans, Vespers of Palermo, II. ii.

	Pro.                Oh! the *forest-paths
	Are dim and wild, e’en when the sunshine streams
	Thro’ their high arches.

1822.  Mantell, Fossils S. Downs, 17. The *Forest-ridge constitutes the north-eastern extremity of the county.

1863.  J. R. Wise, New Forest, iv. 46. So many head of cattle may now be turned out, by those who have *Forest rights, through the year.

1847.  Mary Howitt, Ballads, etc., 140.

	That every soul from Elverslie
	The *forest-roads might take
	Early or late, and should go free
	For Willie o’ Wyburn’s sake.

1704.  Pope, Summer, 61.

	In woods bright Venus with Adonis stray’d,
	And chaste Diana haunts the *forest-shade.

1808.  Scott, Marm., II. Introd. 84.

	No youthful baron’s left to grace
	The *Forest-Sheriff’s lonely chace.

c. 1386.  Chaucer, Wife’s T., 989.

	And in his wey it happed him to ryde,
	In al this care, under a *forest-syde.

14[?].  Sir Beues, 3360 (MS. M.).

	Forth dyd Beuys and Iosian ryde,
	Tyl they cam to a forest syde.

1845.  G. Murray, Islaford, 44.

	But gentle, breezy jauntings are not ta’en
	On *forest-skirt and water-brink in vain.

1852.  G. P. R. James, Agnes Sorel (1860), I. 131. Jean Charost, well accustomed to *forest-sports in his boyhood, paused at one spot where the bushes were a good deal beaten down, to point out the marks to his servant, and say: ‘A boar has been through there.’

1879.  Encycl. Brit. (ed. 9), X. 18/2. The *‘forest-steading of Galashiels’ is first mentioned in history shortly after the beginning of the 15th century, when it was the occasional residence of the Douglases.

1847.  Mary Howitt, Ballads, etc., 127.

	The summer sun shone over his head,
	The larks sung from the sky,
	And the *forest-streams, among the leaves,
	With a talking sound went by.

1819.  Byron, Juan, II. ciii.

	As they drew nigh the land, which now was seen
	Unequal in its aspect here and there,
	They felt the freshness of its growing green,
	That waved in *forest-tops, and smooth’d the air.

1588.  Shaks., Tit. A., II. i. 114.

	The *Forrest walkes are wide and spacious,
	And many vnfrequented plots there are,
	Fitted by kinde for rape and villanie.
	Ibid. (1593), Rich. II., III. i. 22.
	While you haue fed vpon my Seignories,
	Dis-park’d my Parkes, and fell’d my *Forrest Woods.

  b.  esp. with names of living beings, with sense ‘haunting or inhabiting a forest’: as, forest-bear, -bee, -boar, -boy, -dove, -pony.

1593.  Shaks., 3 Hen. VI., II. ii. 13.

	Whose hand is that the *Forrest Beare doth licke?
	Not his that spoyles her yong before her face.

1738.  Wesley, Psalms, civ. 111.

	Darkness He makes the Earth to shroud,
	When *Forest-Beasts securely stray;
	Young Lions roar their Wants aloud
	To Providence, that sends them Prey.

1885.  J. S. Stallybrass, trans. Hehn’s The Wanderings of Plants and Animals, 463. This keeping of *forest-bees was the business of the bee-master.

1870.  Bryant, Iliad, II. XVII. 195.

	Rushing like hounds
	That spring upon a wounded *forest-boar.

1847.  Mary Howitt, Ballads, etc., 123.

	Willie, he did not run about
	With the *forest-boys at play;
	But he sate beside his mother’s door
	A-reading all the day.

a. 1835.  Mrs. Hemans, Sicilian Captive, Poet. Wks. (1849), 413.

	By fountains flinging rainbow-spray on dark and glossy leaves,
	And bowers wherein the *forest-dove her nest untroubled weaves.

1823.  in Cobbett, Rur. Rides (1885), I. 393. Our coats were of the common kind; and, before we saw the other side of the coppice we should, I dare say, have been as ragged as *forest-ponies in the month of March.

  c.  objective, as forest-feller, felling.

1618.  Chapman, Hesiod, Bk. Days, 38.

	Then, let thy *Forrest-feller, cut thee all
	Thy Chamber fuell; and the numerous parts
	Of Nauall timber, apt for Ship-wrights Arts.

1841.  Carlyle, Heroes, 53. Among the Northland Sovereigns, too, I find some who got the title Wood-cutter; *Forest-felling Kings.

  d.  instrumental, locative, and originative; as forest-belted, -born, -bosomed, -bound, -bred, -clad, -crowned, -dweller, -dwelling, frowning, -rustling.

1875.  Longf., Pandora, VI.

	Or have the mountains, the giants,
	The ice-helmed, the *forest-belted,
	Scattered their arms abroad;
	Flung in the meadows their shields?

1600.  Shaks., As You Like It, V. iv. 30.

	But my good Lord, this Boy is *Forrest borne,
	And hath bin tutor’d in the rudiments
	Of many desperate studies, by his vnckle,
	Whom he reports to be a great Magitian.

1817.  Shelley, Athanase, II. ii. 49.

	A swift shadow ran,
	Like wind upon some *forest-bosomed lake,
	Glassy and dark.

1835.  J. P. Kennedy, Horse Shoe R., xiii. Sundry dishes of venison, bacon and corn bread, with such other items of fare as belonged to the sequestered and *forest-bound region in which Adair resided.

1882.  J. Hawthorne, Fort. Fool, I. xiii. The lid of this locket had got unfastened, revealing a finely painted miniature within,—a specimen of art such as the *forest-bred lad had never happened to see before.

1880.  A. R. Wallace, Isl. Life, 208. The Mississippi has a large portion of its basin in an arid country, and its sources are either in *forest-clad plateaux or in mountains free from glaciers and with a scanty rainfall.

1727–46.  Thomson, Summer, 455.

	Thrice happy he! who on the sunless side
	Of a romantic Mountain, *forest-crown’d,
	Beneath the whole collected Shade reclines.

1866.  Peacock, Eng. Ch. Furniture, 14. The manner in which the new creed presented itself to the shepherd, the hunter, the *forest-dweller, and the sea-rover, so as to induce them to cast away thier ancient picturesque mythology, is a still darker problem.

1891.  J. C. Atkinson, The Last of the Giant Killers, 202. All sorts of wild or forest-dwelling creatures were found.

1794.  Coleridge, Monody Death Chatterton, 72.

	And on some hill, whose *forest-frowning side
	Waves o’er the murmurs of his calmer tide,
	Will raise a solemn Cenotaph to thee,
	Sweet Harper of time-shrouded Minstrelsy!

1726–46.  Thomson, Winter, 150.

	From the Shore,
	Eat into Caverns by the restless Wave,
	And *Forest-rustling Mountain, comes a Voice,
	That solemn-sounding bids the World prepare.

  5.  Special combinations: forest-bed, Geol., a stratum originating from a primæval forest; † forest-bill, a woodman’s bill-hook; forest-brown a., the trade designation of a color used for ladies’ dresses; † forest-cloth, ? some woollen fabric; forest-court (see quot.); † forest-fever, jungle-fever; forest-fly, a fly of the genus Hippobosca, esp. H. equina; forest-green a. and sb., applied by Scott to the ‘Lincoln green,’ said in the ballads to be the special costume of Robin Hood and his men; hence (?), used as the commercial name of a shade of green in dress-material; forest-kangaroo: see FORESTER 3 b; forest-laws, laws relating to royal forests, enacted by William I. and other Norman kings; forest-marble (see quot.); forest-oak (see quot.); forest-peat, wood-peat (Cent. Dict.); forest-school, a school for giving instruction and training in the management of forests; forest-stone (see quot.); forest-tree, any tree of large growth, fitted to be a constituent part of a forest; forest-wards adv., towards the forest; † forest-white, a kind of cloth; † forest-work, a decorative representation of sylvan scenery.

1865.  D. Page, Handbk. Geol. Terms (ed. 2), *Forest-Bed.—The name given by English geologists to a stratum which underlies the Glacial Drift at Cromer in Norfolk, because it imbeds abundant stumps, trunks, and branches of trees.

1488.  Mem. Ripon (Surtees), I. 311. Cum quodam le *Forest byll præfatum Stephanum ad tunc et ibidem in capite percussit.

1828–40.  Berry, Encycl. Herald., I. Forest-Bill, or Wood-Bill, an instrument used for lopping trees, &c.

1892.  Daily News, 29 Sept., 6/2. A tea-gown of *forest brown velvet.

1769.  Dublin Mercury, 16–19 Sept., 2/2. All kinds of broad cloths, *forrest cloths, beaver druggets.

1768.  Blackstone, Comm., III. vi. 71. The *forest courts, instituted for the government of the king’s forests, in different parts of the kingdom, and for the punishment of all injuries done to the king’s deer or venison, to the vert or greensward, and to the covert in which such deer are lodged.

1799.  Colebrooke, in Life (1873), 427. This disorder did not assume the worst shape of what is denominated the *forest fever.

1658.  Rowland, Moufet’s Theat. Ins., 934. The greater … is the *Forrest-fly.

1773.  G. White, Selborne, liii. (1875), 143. A species of them [Hippoboscæ] is familiar to horsemen in the south of England under the name of forest-fly; and, to some, of side-fly, from its running sideways like a crab.

1836–39.  R. B. Todd, The Cyclopædia of Anatomy and Physiology, II. 867/2. The forest-fly is exceedingly troublesome to horses in the summer, and abounds in the New Forest in Hampshire.

1810.  Scott, Lady of L., IV. xii.

	If pall and vair no more I wear,
	Nor thou the crimson sheen,
	As warm, we ’ll say, is the russet gray,
	As gay the *forest-green.

    Ibid. (1820), Ivanhoe, iii. His dress was a tunic of forest green, furred at the throat and cuffs.

1892.  Daily News, 16 Sept., 3/3. A dark forest-green gown is lined with tartan silk in brown and green.

1852.  Mrs. Meredith, My home in Tasmania, I. xiv. 244. I commence with the largest, the Great or *Forest Kangaroo (Macropus giganteus), the ‘Forester’ of the colonists, which I have not yet seen in its wild state.

1598.  Manwood, Lawes Forest, vi. 34. After the making of Carta de foresta, there was some question amongst those, that were vnlearned in the *Forrest lawes, what was Vert.

1839.  Keightley, Hist. Eng., I. 103. No part of the royal despotism was so galling to the subjects of both races as these forest-laws, and they were a continued subject of complaint.

1865.  D. Page, Handbk. Geol. Terms, *Forest Marble.—An argillaceous laminated shelly limestone, alternating with clays and calcareous sandstones, and forming one of the upper portions of the Lower Oolite. It derives its name from Whichwood Forest in Oxfordshire, where the finer bands are quarried as a marble.

1882.  J. Smith, Dict. Pop. Names Plants, 294. Casuarina equisetifolia and C. torulosa are the most common. In Australia they are known by the names of Swamp Oak, She Oak, *Forest Oak, and also (on account of the appearance of their wood) Beef-wood.

1888.  Pall Mall G., 4 April, 5/1. The difference between skilled and unskilled management would more than repay the cost of a *forest school.

1787.  G. White, Selborne, iv. (1789), 10. In Wolmer Forest I see but one sort of stone, called by the workmen sand, or *forest-stone…. This is … composed of a small roundish crystalline grit, cemented together by a brown, terrene, ferruginous matter.

1712.  J. James, trans. Le Blond’s Gardening, 145. All the Trees hitherto mentioned, are, in general, called *Forest-Trees.

1814.  Scott, Ld. of Isles, V. xxvii.

	The rest move slowly forth with me,
	In shelter of the forest tree,
	Till Douglas at his post I see.

1833.  Ht. Martineau, Briery Creek, vi. 139. She looked out, *forest-wards, for long before she tried to rest; and, with the first grey of morning, was again at the same station.

1551–2.  Act 5 & 6 Edw. VI., c. 6 § 1. All Clothes commonly called Pennystones or *Forest Whites.

1647.  H. More, Song of Soul, I. I. xli.

	All *forrest-work is in this tapestry:
	The Oke, the Holm, the Ash, the Aspine tree,
	The lonesome Buzzard, th’ Eagle and the Py,
	The Buck, the Bear, the Boar, the Hare, the Bee,
	The Brize, the black-arm’d Clock, the Gnat, the butterflie.

1745.  De Foe’s Eng. Tradesman, xxii. (1841), I, 207. All the walls of the shop lined up with galley-tiles; and the back shop with galley tiles in panels, finely painted in forest-work and figures.