bush
noun
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L16197 on Wikidata ↗verb
- to furnish or line with a bushing
adjective
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L335103 on Wikidata ↗Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ˈbʊʃ/ / [ˈbʊʃ] / /ˈbɵʃ/ / /bʊʃ/ / /bʉʃ/
adj
Etymology: Back-formation from bush league.
- Not skilled; not professional; not major league.
“They’re supposed to be a major league team, but so far they've been bush.”
adv
Etymology: A semantic expansion of bush (see Etymology 1, archaic and dialectal sense of “thicket” or “small wood”), which survived in English dialects and London‐area toponyms (such as Shepherd’s Bush). In its native English form, the term inherently denoted a scrubby, localized feature. In British colonies, this specific sense was applied to the broader landscape, evolving into a mass noun for the wilderness. This development was likely reinforced by, or originated as a semantic loan from, the cognate older Dutch bosch (modern bos (“wood, forest”)), which had undergone a similar semantic shift in the Dutch settlements of North America (such as New Netherland) and later the Cape Colony. From the North American Dutch loan, English acquired the concept of “the bush” as a vast, untamed wilderness. Evidence of this early linguistic integration appears in late 17th‐century English records via compound calques from both major Dutch contact zones: the 1695 North American use of “bushloopers” (anglicized from Dutch boschlooper (“woods‐runner”)) and the 1699 Cape Colony reference to “Wild‐bush‐Men” (translating Cape Dutch Bosjesman). However, as an independent topographical noun describing the South African landscape, the English term is not securely attested until circa 1780. In Australian English, the term was used as early as 1790 by First Lieutenant Ralph Clark. As a native of Edinburgh, Clark would have been familiar with the Scots cognates buss and bush (retaining the archaic sense of a wood or clump of trees); this native linguistic framework likely made him highly receptive to the broader Dutch usage he encountered during his prior military service in the Netherlands and North America. Australia served as the crucible where these semantic threads merged. The widely spaced, scrubby eucalypt woodlands perfectly matched the native British English visual of a low‐canopied thicket, while their vastness fulfilled the Dutch concept of an untamed expanse. This convergence caused the term to rapidly supplant the traditional English woods and forest, as the open Australian landscape differed markedly from the dense, deciduous canopies of Europe. Via early 19th‐century trans‐Tasman trade and settlement routes out of New South Wales, the term was subsequently exported to New Zealand, where it was applied to the region’s dense, temperate rainforests. The adverbial usage of the term (dropping the preposition and article, as in go bush or head bush) likely originated in early 19th‐century New South Wales Pidgin. As documented by contact linguists, this syntax reflects typical pidginization (preposition deletion) alongside the substrate influence of Indigenous Australian languages, which frequently utilize absolute locatives or directional adverbs rather than prepositions for spatial movement. From this contact language, the grammatical shorthand permeated the broader colonial vernacular.
- Towards the direction of the outback.
“On hatching, the chicks scramble to the surface and head bush on their own.”
name
Etymology: Either the family name for those who live near a bush or a thicket of bushes, or the family name for those living at or near a bush (in the archaic sense of wine merchant or tavern).
- A surname from Middle English.
“In March 1953, a month after Jeb was born, the Bush family received the devastating news that Robin had leukemia. A local doctor told the Bushes that doctors had never seen a white blood cell count that high and there was nothing they could do for her.”
“When Larissa Santos opened her front door and saw Rachel Bush for the first time, she was immediately flooded with emotions.”
- A surname from Middle English.
- A surname from Middle English.
“This means Gore will have to stop dancing away from the question as if the pardon decision were somehow shared with the pardonee. It's time he chose the hard right over the easy wrong answer. (For Bush, it would be an opportunity to demonstrate nonpartisan compassion on a grand scale.)”
- A place name:
- A place name:
- A place name:
- A place name:
- A place name:
noun
Etymology: From Middle Dutch busse (“box; wheel bushing”), from Proto-West Germanic *buhsā. More at box.
- A thick washer or hollow cylinder of metal.
- A mechanical attachment, usually a metallic socket with a screw thread, such as the mechanism by which a camera is attached to a tripod stand.
- A piece of copper, screwed into a gun, through which the venthole is bored.
verb
Etymology: From Middle Dutch busse (“box; wheel bushing”), from Proto-West Germanic *buhsā. More at box.
- To furnish with a bush or lining; to line.
“to bush a pivot hole”