beech

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“
Nothing else would grow there, but the hollies thrive upon the stony soil David, the beech is all right and safe."

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Definitions (23)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun A deciduous tree of the genus Fagus having smooth gray bark, alternate simple leaves, and three-angled nuts enclosed in prickly burs. The best-known species are F. grandifolia of eastern North America and the European species F. sylvatica and its numerous cultivated forms.
  2. noun The wood of any of these trees, used for flooring, containers, plywood, and tool handles.
  3. noun Any of several other woody plants, as in the genera Carpinus and Nothofagus.

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Examples (50)

  • In spring the beech is the most beautiful of forest trees, putting forth individual horizontal sprays of tender green from the lower branches about the end of April as heralds of the later full glory of the tree. —  Grain and Chaff from an English Manor
  • Ikea cube tv stand bookcase - beech, pick up Brisbane —  xml's Blinklist.com
  • With the absence of the beech, the big backyard no longer is shady.
  • Fernleaf beech is arguably the loveliest beech of all for use in the landscape.
  • He says that "the sorts of wood or timber delivered to the miners were oak and beech, and none other; chiefly oak in the summer, more pits being sunk in the summer than in the winter, and the keepers having the bark; more beech is allowed in the winter than oak. —  The Forest of Dean An Historical and Descriptive Account
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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English beche, from Old English bēce; see bhāgo- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. from Middle English beche, from Anglo-Saxon bēce, earlier bǣce, by umlaut for *bōce (= Old Low German bōke, böke, Low German baike), a deriv. of bōc (later modern English buck in comp. buckmast and buckwheat) = Old Dutch boeke, Dutch beuk = Flemish boek = Old High German Icelandic bōk = Swedish bok = Danish bog = Old High German buohha, Middle High German buoche, German buche (later Old Bulgarian bukui, bukuve, Bulgarian buk, Servian bukva, Polish Bohemian buk, Russian bukŭ, Lithuanian buka, Hungarian bük, bik, beech) = Gothic (Moesogothic) *bōka (not recorded), beech, = Latin fāgus (see Fagus), beech, = Greek φηγός φᾶγός, an esculent oak, perhaps orig. a tree with esculent fruit, from the root seen in Greek φαγεῖν, eat, Sanskrit √ bhaj, share. For the connection with book, see book.
 

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/bitʃ/
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