spinney

See also: Spinney

English

Alternative forms

• spinny

Etymology 1

From Middle English spenné, from Middle French espinoye (“thorny thicket”), espinaye, from Latin spīnētum (“thorny thicket”), from Latin spīna (“thorn”).

Noun

spinney (plural spinneys)

1. (UK) A small copse or wood, especially one planted as a shelter for game birds.
   • 1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Lisson Grove Mystery”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020:

     “H'm !" he said, "so, so — it is a tragedy in a prologue and three acts. I am going down this afternoon to see the curtain fall for the third time on what […] will prove a good burlesque ; but it all began dramatically enough. It was last Saturday […] that two boys, playing in the little spinney just outside Wembley Park Station, came across three large parcels done up in American cloth. […] ”

   • 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XII, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:

     I've never hunted myself, but I understand that half the battle is being able to make noises like some jungle animal with dyspepsia, and I believe that Aunt Dahlia in her prime could lift fellow-members of the Quorn and Pytchley out of their saddles with a single yip, though separated from them by two ploughed fields and a spinney.

   • 1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, London: Heinemann, →OCLC, page 23:

     Freda, the German undermatron, once discovered him sunbathing nude in the spinney.

See also

• thicket
• copse
• grove

Etymology 2

Shortening

Noun

spinney (plural spinneys)

1. Clipping of spinnaker.

References

• OED 2nd edition 1989

Anagrams

• Pinneys

Manx

Noun

spinney m (genitive singular [please provide], plural [please provide])

1. elasticity

Synonyms

• so-lhoobaght

Antonyms

• neuspinney