bosk

English[edit]

WOTD – 3 September 2019

Etymology[edit]

A bosk, or thicket, in the Austin T. Blakeslee Natural Area, Monroe County, Pennsylvania, USA

From Middle English bosk, busk, variants of bush (“grove, wood; thicket, underbrush; bush; branch of a shrub or tree”), from Old English busc (attested only in place names), likely from Anglo-Latin bosca (“firewood”), from Late Latin busca, buscus, boscus (“wood; woodland”),^[1] from Frankish and Proto-West Germanic *busk, from Proto-Germanic *buskaz (“bush, thicket”), probably from Proto-Indo-European *bʰuH- (“to become, grow, appear”).

The English word is cognate with Dalmatian buasc (“forest; wood”), French bois (“wood (material); wood, woodland”), Italian bosco (“wood (wooded area)”), Middle Dutch bosch, busch (modern Dutch bos (“forest; wood”)), Norwegian busk (“bush, shrub”); Occitan boscs, Old High German busk (“bush”) (Middle High German busch, bosch, modern German Busch (“bush, shrub; brush, scrub”)), Portuguese bosque (“grove”), Spanish bosque (“forest”), West Frisian bosk (“forest”).

Alternatively, the modern word may be a back-formation from bosky (“having abundant bushes, shrubs, or trees”).^[2]

Pronunciation[edit]

(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /bɒsk/
Audio (RP)
(file)
(General American) IPA^(key): /bɑsk/

Noun[edit]

bosk (plural bosks)

(obsolete except dialectal) A bush.
(archaic) A thicket; a small wood.
Synonyms: copse, grove
- 1815, Walter Scott, “Canto Fifth”, in The Lord of the Isles, a Poem, Edinburgh: Printed for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown; by James Ballantyne and Co., […], OCLC 25523028, stanza XVI, page 196:
  Meantime, through well-known bosk and dell, / I'll lead where we may shelter well.
- 1847, Alfred Tennyson, The Princess: A Medley, London: Edward Moxon, […], OCLC 2024748, part I, page 17:
  [...] and so by town and thorpe, / And tilth, and blowing bosks of wilderness, / We gain'd the mother-city thick with towers, / And in the imperial palace found the king.
- 1857, Pisistratus Caxton [pseudonym; Edward Bulwer-Lytton], chapter I, in What will He Do with It? (Collection of British Authors; CCCCVII), volume I, Tauchnitz edition, Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, OCLC 925609926, book II, page 140:
  The enclosure was indeed little beyond that of a good-sized paddock – its boundaries were visible on every side – but swelling uplands, covered with massy foliage sloped down to its wild irregular turf soil – soil poor for pasturage, but pleasant to the eye; with dell and dingle, bosks of fantastic pollards – dotted oaks of vast growth – here and there a weird hollow thorn-tree – patches of fern and gorse.
- 1862 May 4, Henry H[opkins] Sibley, “Operations in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. February 1 – September 20, 1862. [No. 8. Reports of Brig. Gen. Henry H. Sibley, C.S. Army, Commanding Army of New Mexico, Including Operations from January – to May 4, 1862.]”, in A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Additions and Corrections to Series I—Volume IX, Washington, D.C.: Published under the direction of the Hon. Elihu Root, Secretary of War, by Brig. Gen. Fred C[rayton] Ainsworth, Chief of the Record and Pension Office, War Department, and Mr. Joseph W. Kirkley; Government Printing Office, published 1902, OCLC 900475952, page 507:
  On February 16 a reconnaissance in force was pushed to within a mile of the fort and battle offered on the open plain. The challenge was disregarded, and only noticed by the sending out of a few well-mounted men to watch our movements. The forces of the enemy were kept well concealed in the bosque (grove) above the fort and within its walls.
  This could be a use of bosque in the sense of “a gallery forest found growing along a river bank or on the flood plain of a watercourse”.
- 1991, Contract Design, volume 33, New York, N.Y.: Gralla Publications, ISSN 1053-5632, OCLC 1108210410, page 87, columns 12:
  Gensler also used box-trimmed ficus bosks in the executive dining area, where privacy is more important. "We made the spacing more generous between tables, grouped the tables in threes and fours, and set each group off with the bosks," [...]
- 1991, David C. Streatfield, “The Olmsteads and the Landscape of the Mall”, in Richard Longstreth, editor, The Mall in Washington, 1791–1991: Symposium: Papers, Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, →ISBN, page 138, column 2:
  The area on the north side of the Mall that had been occupied for several decades by temporary structures was redesigned with a varied series of formal bosks evoking the character of baroque woodlands.