spinney

See also: Spinney

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Middle English spenné, from Middle French espinoye (thorny thicket), espinaye, from Latin spīnētum (thorny thicket), from Latin spīna (thorn).

Noun

spinney (plural spinneys)

  1. (Britain) A small copse or wood, especially one planted as a shelter for game birds.
    • 1905, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, chapter 2, in The Lisson Grove Mystery:
      “H'm ! he said, so, soit is a tragedy in a prologue and three acts. I am going down this afternoon to see the curtain fall for the third time on what [...] will prove a good burlesque ; but it all began dramatically enough. It was last Saturday […] that two boys, playing in the little spinney just outside Wembley Park Station, came across three large parcels done up in American cloth. […]”
    • 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XII, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, OCLC 1227855:
      I've never hunted myself, but I understand that half the battle is being able to make noises like some jungle animal with dyspepsia, and I believe that Aunt Dahlia in her prime could lift fellow-members of the Quorn and Pytchley out of their saddles with a single yip, though separated from them by two ploughed fields and a spinney.
    • 1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, p. 23:
      Freda, the German undermatron, once discovered him sunbathing nude in the spinney.

References

  • OED 2nd edition 1989

Anagrams


Manx

Noun

spinney m (genitive singular [please provide], plural [please provide])

  1. elasticity

Synonyms

Antonyms

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