Other forms: boughs
A bough is a large main branch of a tree. A low bough, boughs of holly, the bough broke.
It is larger than a branch and joins the trunk directly, which is the distinction foresters keep and most people do not. The word is literary and survives in carols and nursery rhymes. Note the spelling and pronunciation, which rhyme with cow; and that the Old English word originally meant a shoulder or arm.
1nounboughA large main branch of a tree.
“A heavy bough broke off the oak in the storm and crushed the fence.”
bough is a branch.
Old English bog meant a shoulder or an arm as well as a branch. The word is Germanic and old.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰeh₂ǵʰús — arm
Proto-Germanic
*bōguz — shoulder; upper arm
Proto-West Germanic
*bōgu
Old English
bōg
Middle English
bough — branch of a bush or tree, especially a main branch; limb of an animal or person; something resembling a branch (such as a plant root or branch of a nerve); (figuratively) Christian cross; descendant, offspring
English, today
bough
Built from
From Middle English bough (“branch of a bush or tree, especially a main branch; limb of an animal or person; something resembling a branch (such as a plant root or branch of a nerve); (figuratively) Christian cross; descendant, offspring”)boe, bog, bogh, boghe, boght, boh, bohu, bohw, boow, bou, boughe, bouh, bouw, bouȝ, bouȝe, bow, bowe, bowȝe, boȝ, boȝe, boȝh, bugh, bught, buh, buȝ, from Old English bōg, bōh (“tree bough or branch; arm; shoulder”), from Proto-West Germanic bōgu, from Proto-Germanic bōguz (“shoulder; upper arm”), from Proto-Indo-European bʰeh₂ǵʰús (“arm”). Cognate with stq Bouch, West Frisian boech, Dutch boeg, German Low German Boog, German Bug, Danish bov, Icelandic bógur, and distantly with Ancient Greek πῆχυς (“forearm, cubit, etc.”). a doublet of bow "front of a ship, prow".
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA