bosk

A bosk, or thicket, in the Austin T. Blakeslee Natural Area, Monroe County, Pennsylvania, USA

From Middle English bosk, busk, variants of bush (“grove, wood; thicket, underbrush; bush; branch of a shrub or tree”), from Old English busc (attested only in place names), likely from Anglo-Latin bosca (“firewood”), from Late Latin busca, buscus, boscus (“wood; woodland”),[1] from Proto-Germanic *buskaz (“bush, thicket”), probably from Proto-Indo-European *bʰuH- (“to become, grow, appear”). The English word is cognate with Dalmatian buasc (“forest; wood”), French bois (“wood (material); wood, woodland”), Italian bosco (“wood (wooded area)”), Middle Dutch bosch, busch (modern Dutch bos (“forest; wood”)), Occitan boscs, Old High German busk (“bush”) (Middle High German busch, bosch, modern German Busch (“bush, shrub; brush, scrub”)), Portuguese bosque (“grove”), Spanish bosque (“forest”).

Alternatively, the modern word may be a back-formation from bosky (“having abundant bushes, shrubs, or trees”).[2]

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /bɒsk/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /bɑsk/

bosk (plural bosks)

1. (obsolete except dialectal) A bush.
2. (archaic) A thicket; a small wood.

   Synonyms: copse, grove

   • 1815, Walter Scott, “Canto Fifth”, in The Lord of the Isles, a Poem, Edinburgh: Printed for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown; by James Ballantyne and Co., […], OCLC 25523028, stanza XVI, page 196:

     Meantime, through well-known bosk and dell, / I'll lead where we may shelter well.

   • 1847, Alfred Tennyson, The Princess: A Medley, London: Edward Moxon, […], OCLC 2024748, part I, page 17:

     […] and so by town and thorpe, / And tilth, and blowing bosks of wilderness, / We gain'd the mother-city thick with towers, / And in the imperial palace found the king.

• bosque (rare)

• bosky
• embosk, imbosk

• boscage, bocage

• Thesaurus:forest

• Boks, KBOs, kobs

bosk m

1. hornless goat

• shyt

From Old Frisian bosk, from Proto-Germanic *buskaz.

bosk n (plural bosken, diminutive boskje)

1. forest

   Synonym: wâld

• boskwachter

• “bosk”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011

bosk c (plural bosken, diminutive boskje)

1. bundle
2. bush, thicket

• “bosk”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011