Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A mass of trees or shrubs; a thicket.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A mass of growing trees or shrubs; woods, groves, or thickets; sylvan scenery.
- n. In old law, probably, food or sustenance for cattle which is yielded by bushes and trees.
Wiktionary
- n. A place set with trees or mass of shrubbery, a grove or thicket.
- n. law Mast-nuts of forest trees, used as food for pigs, or any such sustenance as wood and trees yield to cattle.
- n. art Among painters, the term is used for a picture depicting a wooded scene.
- n. A tax on wood.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A growth of trees or shrubs; underwood; a thicket; thick foliage; a wooded landscape.
- n. (O. Eng. Law) Food or sustenance for cattle, obtained from bushes and trees; also, a tax on wood.
Etymologies
- From the Middle English boskage, from the Old French boscage, from Proto-Germanic *bosk (“forest, woods”). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English boskage, from Old French boscage, from bosc, forest, of Germanic origin. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“They had not gone far into the wood; Schilsky knew of a secluded seat, which was screened by a kind of boscage; and here they had remained.”
“The noun 'boscage' = jungle or _bush_ (M.E. _busch_,”
“There were none of those cataclysms of mire and sloughs of black mud and over-tall grasses, none of that miasmatic jungle with its noxious emissions; it was just such a scene as one may find before an English mansion — a noble expanse of lawn and sward, with boscage sufficient to agreeably diversify it.”
“Wherefore we bent our course thither, where we saw the appearance of land, all that night; and in the dawning of next day we might plainly discern that it was a land flat to our sight, and full of boscage, which made it show the more dark.”
“The band, hidden in a small, thick boscage of the wide gardens, broke into a mockingly cheerful air.”
“We could not see the façade of the shaîtya on account of the concealing boscage of trees.”
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 17, No. 097, January, 1876
“Now, it seems to me that when you old Aryans came from -- from -- well, from wherever you _did_ come from -- you branched out at first into a superb magnificence of religions and sentiments and imaginations and other boscage.”
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 17, No. 097, January, 1876
“Polished automobiles gliding noiselessly through massed purple and silver shrubberies, receded into bland glooms of well-thought-out boscage.”
The Best Short Stories of 1920 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story
“I do not know barnell, but the last twenty years have set many houses among the boscage.”
“Caterham once was a valley; Aubrey wrote of it: "In this parish are many pleasant little vallies, stored with wild thyme, sweet marjoram, barnell, boscage, and beeches.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘boscage’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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phrontistery - b
List of words from phrontistery.info
bywoner, byssus, byssiferous, byssaceous, byrnie, butyric, butyraceous, buttery, buteonine, bunting, burdet, broma and 582 more...
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wallace
Remington, Windsor, prorector, wen, aver, mottle, seltzer, tepee, lapidary, effete, sotto, presbyopia and 355 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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Nothing's Certain But Words and Taxes
agistage, gait, agistment, alcavala, avania, cadastre, calcagium, capitation, carucage, cension, cense-money, cess and 117 more...
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September Words-10031
During the month of September, post at least 10 new words to this list. Make sure you cite where you read the word (book/author/pg) and quote the context/sentence where you found it. If someone has...
pseudonym, Cacophony, Cannabis, Bogus, Soulless, via, celestial, Liquor, dwarf, Wretched, Gemini, quartz and 53 more...
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September Words-11849
During the month of September, post at least 10 new words to this list. Make sure you cite where you read the word (book/author/pg) and quote the context/sentence where you found it. If someone has...
psilocybin, raca, schema, myriad, copacetic, chastise, fractal, tourniquet, turncoat, vicarious, surreptitiously, clandestine and 34 more...
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O! Timballo
for the same
tea-poy, pooking fork, ait, eyot, quodlibet, milk leg, tussie-mussie, calash, gueules, caitiff, bindery, demi-rep and 226 more...
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bintalshamsa's list
My Favorite Words
weltschmerz, perspicacity, idée fixe, invigilator, salubrious, tchotchke, ex nihilo, invidious, malapropism, naïve, sardonic, elide and 1402 more...
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Infinite Jest
Words taken from Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.
prorector, monograph, post-fourier, snuffle, rototremble, creatus, enfilade, subanimalistic, balletic, espadrilles, leonine, cirri and 1153 more...
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Stumbled Words
A list of words that I stumbled upon while reading.
penumbra, prolix, propitious, resplendence, sepulchral, Weltschmerz, apparition, brigand, probity, chalice, paroxysm, pallor and 160 more...
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Infinite Jest
Words to remember from DFW's "Infinite Jest"
wen, matriculation, circumflex, lapidary, effete, sotto, hypertrophy, presbyopic, ideogram, pinion, parquet, nelson and 152 more...
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learning
A list of words whose meanings I am learning, either because a) I don't know the meaning b) I know the meaning, but could stand to better appreciate certain inflections or secondary meanings or c) ...
louche, educe, loam, cob, sclerotic, palliate, axial, syndicalist, ecumenical, sally, fatuous, parvenu and 1381 more...
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5-0
Hecko, words! I’m so happy I’ve found you. I want to keep you all and never want to lose you again. I hope you like it here.
amscray, thistledown, tine, tinsel, pungent, snarl, wail, lanky, viscid, dawdle, luminous, stow and 2719 more...
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Verbalitis
syncretic
anecdotal, phthisis, serendipitous, slapper, syncretic, sesquipedalian, hysteresis, polt, noyade, crocket, irenic, masquerade and 279 more...
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conglomeration
wherewithal, wan, zoonotic, zoonosis, nebulous, nefarious, nascent, quiescent, quell, undercroft, unwitting, unutterable and 658 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for boscage.
westwalker Alt. bocage, as in "On a sunny day, a traveller (sic) could walk for hours and emerge from the bocage as pale as a ghost." Robb, The Discovery of France, p.15. Mar 29, 2011
mkluver1 just read this word on word of the day. Oct 1, 2010
snfitzsimmons@aol.com {word of the day 10 Sept. 2010} Sep 27, 2010
rhialtothearchivist I believe I have seen the word used to name the pudendal hair of a woman in a dirty book I saw some while ago. I think the work may have been authored by John Colleton. Sep 27, 2010
super-kawy A mass of trees or shrubs; a thicket. (Middle English boskage from Old French boscage from bosc, forest of Germanic origin.) Sep 22, 2009