forest

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[edit] English

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[edit] Etymology

From Middle English forest, from Old French forest, from Medieval Latin foresta (“open wood”), first used in the Capitularies of Charlemagne in reference to the royal forest (as opposed to the inner woods, or parcus). Displaced native Middle English weald, wald (“forest, weald”), from Old English weald, Middle English scogh, scough (“forest, shaw”), from Old Norse skógr, and Middle English frith, firth (“forest, game preserve”), from Old English fyrhþ.

etymology note

Medieval Latin foresta probably represents the fusion of two earlier words: one taken as an adaptation of the Late Latin phrase forestem silvam (“the outside woods”), mistaking forestem for woods (—a development not found in Romance languages; compare Old French selve (“forest”)); the other is the continuance of an existing word since Merovingian times of Germanic origin, from Frankish *forhist (“forest, wooded country, game preserve”) as the general word for "forest, forested land". The Medieval Latin term may have originated as a sound-alike, or been adapted as a play on the Frankish word (Gallo-Romans were often outraged by the King's exclusive hunting rights in the "outside forest". Emphasis to "outside" may have been an attempt to evoke danger, or to emphasise that the lands were banned from general note). Frankish *forhist comes from Proto-Germanic *furhisa-, *furhiþ(j)a-, *furhijan (“forest, wooded country”), from Proto-Indo-European *perkʷu- (“coniferous forest, mountain forest, wooded height”), and is cognate with Old High German forst (German Forst, “forest, wooded country”), Middle Low German vorst (“forest”), Old English fyrhþ, fyrhþe (“forest, game preserve, wooded country”), Old Norse fȳri (“pine forest”), and Old Norse fjǫrr (“tree”). More at frith, fir.

Latin forestem (“outside”) comes from Latin foris (“outside, out of doors”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰwer- (“door, gate”), akin to English door. More at foreign.
A forest.

[edit] Pronunciation

[edit] Noun

forest (plural forests)

  1. A dense collection of trees covering a relatively large area. Larger than woods.
  2. Any dense collection or amount.
    Forest of criticism.
  3. A defined area of land formerly set aside in England as a royal hunting ground.
  4. (graph theory) a disjoint union of trees

[edit] Derived terms

terms derived from forest (noun)

[edit] Related terms

[edit] See also

[edit] Translations

dense collection of trees
any dense collection
graph theory: union of trees

[edit] Verb

forest (third-person singular simple present forests, present participle foresting, simple past and past participle forested)

  1. (transitive) To cover an area with trees.

[edit] Translations

to cover an area with trees

[edit] See also

[edit] Anagrams

[edit] Middle French

[edit] Noun

forest f. (plural forestz)

  1. forest
    Mais quand il eut mis fin a ses parolles, & que semblablement les forestz resonnãtes se furent appaisées […] (L’Arcadie-Trad-Massin, published 1544, Paris)
    But when he had finished talking, and the forests felt appeased […]

[edit] Old French

[edit] Noun

forest f. (oblique plural forests, nominative singular forest, nominative plural forests)

  1. forest

[edit] Descendants

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