Other forms: bushes
A bush is a woody plant like a small tree, with lots of branches starting close to the ground. The rose bush by the front step, the prickly one that catches your sleeve, blackcurrant bushes at the end of the garden.
Gardeners say shrub for the same plant; bush is the everyday word. In Australia and southern Africa, the bush is wild uncleared country far from any town, which gives bushfire, bush track and going bush. Bush also names a thick mass of growth, and bushy carries the same idea: bushy eyebrows, a fox bushy tail. Two old sayings keep the word in daily use — to beat about the bush is to circle around what you mean instead of saying it, and a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
1nounbushA woody plant smaller than a tree, with many branches near the ground.
“A blackbird was pulling worms from the soil under the bush.”
synonyms: shrub
2nounwildWild uncleared country, especially in Australia and Africa.
“They spent a week in the bush with no phone signal.”
3nounthickA thick mass of hair or growth.
“A bush of grey hair stuck out from under his hat.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
bush is a plant.
Also accepted in games: shrub
Old English busċ meant a copse or scrub, from Proto-Germanic *buskaz, bush or thicket, and probably from an Indo-European root *bʰuH-, to grow: the bush named for the plain fact that it grows. Its relatives are spread across the map — Dutch bos, forest, German Busch, Swedish buske, Icelandic buski.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰuH- — to grow
Proto-Germanic
*buskaz — bush, thicket
Proto-West Germanic
*busk
Old English
*busċ
Middle English
bush
English, today
bush
Built from
From Middle English bush, from Old English busċ, bysċ (“copse, grove, scrub”), from Proto-West Germanic busk, from Proto-Germanic buskaz (“bush, thicket”), probably from Proto-Indo-European bʰuH- (“to grow”). a doublet of bosque. 2 Cognate with stq Busk (“bush”), West Frisian bosk (“forest”), Dutch bos (“forest, wood”), German Busch (“bush, shrub; small forest, grove”), lb Bësch (“forest, wood”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk busk (“bush, shrub”), Icelandic buski (“bush, shrub”), Swedish buske (“bush, shrub”), Persian بیشه (“woods”). Latin and Romance forms (Latin boscus, Occitan bòsc, French bois, bûche and buisson, Italian bosco and boscaglia, Spanish bosque, Portuguese bosque) derive from the Germanic.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA