Also 1 þiccot, 6 thykette, 7 thickett. [OE. þiccet, neut., f. þicce thick + -et, denominative suffix (as in emn-et plain, rýmet space).] A dense growth of shrubs, underwood, and small trees; a place where low trees or bushes grow thickly together; a brake. Cf. THICK sb. 5.
a. 1000. Ps. (Spelm.) xxviii[i]. 9. Stefn drihtnes awrihþ þiccettu [Lamb. þiccetu].
1530. Tindale, Gen. xxii. 13. A ram caught by the hornes in a thykette.
1530. Palsgr., 280/1. Thicket or a forest, boscaige.
1555. Eden, Decades, 57. They founde a greate thicket of reedes.
1593. Shaks., 3 Hen. VI., IV. v. 3. Leaue off to wonder why I drew you hither, Into this cheefest Thicket of the Parke.
1667. Milton, P. L., IV. 681. How often from the steep Of echoing Hill or Thicket have we heard Celestial voices to the midnight air … Singing.
1711. Addison, Spect., No. 56, ¶ 3. This huge Thicket of Thorns and Brakes was designed as a Kind of Fence.
1855. Kingsley, Heroes, III. (1868), 32. They sang like nightingales among the thickets.
b. transf. and fig.
1582. Stanyhurst, Æneis, II. (Arb.), 54. I run forward too rush throgh thicket of armoure.
1612. Webster, White Devil, II. i. 79. I’le meete thee Even in a thicket of thy ablest men.
1657. S. Purchas, Pol. Flying-Ins., xvii. 111. They are quickly be-wildred in a thicket of errors.
1698. Fryer, Acc. E. India & P., 45. A Thicket of twenty Sail of our Enemies were discovered.
1821. Scott, Kenilw., xiii. His wild and overgrown thicket of beard was now restrained to two small mustachios.
1866. J. Martineau, Ess., I. 52. We entangle ourselves in a thicket of ever-growing problems.
c. attrib. and Comb., as thicket-maze, -haunting.
1813. Scott, Rokeby, IV. ii. Where the thicket-groupes recede.
1837. Stanley, Gipsies, 136. Or track old Jordan through his thicket maze.
1850. Allingham, Poems, Music-master, II. xv. The thicket-tangling, tenderest briar-rose.
1892. Guardian, 11 May, 706/2. Along the courtly mere of thicket isles.
Hence Thicketed a., occupied or covered by thickets; Thicketful, as many or as much as fills a thicket; Thickety a., abounding in thickets.
c. 1624. Chapman, Homer, Hymn to Bacchus, 140. In ivies and in baies All over *thicketed.
1835. W. Irving, Tour Prairies, xxxiii. The same kind of rough, hilly, thicketed country.
1887. J. Service, Dr. Duguid, 270. Sweet sounds … From out the *thicketful of singing throats.
1846. Mrs. Marsh, Emilia Wyndham (1848), 349. Very fine timber and *thicketty woods.
1865. W. G. Palgrave, Arabia, I. 238. Broken and thickety ground in front.
