Obs. exc. dial. Also 5 quech(e, 7 queich. [Of obscure etym.] A dense growth of bushes; a thicket (see also quot. 1825).
c. 1450. Merlin, xxvii. 540. Thei rode so longe till thei com in to a thikke queche in a depe valey.
1486. Bk. St. Albans, D j. When ye come to a wode or a quech of bushus.
1565. Golding, Ovid’s Met., I. (1593), 4. Their houses were the thicks, And bushie queaches.
1653. Sir W. Denny, Pelecanicidium, III. ix. 7. Through furzie Queaches thou must goe.
a. 1825. Forby, Voc. E. Anglia, Queach, a plat of ground adjoining arable land, and left unploughed, because full of bushes or roots of trees.
1832. L. Hunt, Poems, 198. Wood, copse, or queach.
