Other forms: bushels
A bushel is an old measure of volume for grain and fruit. A bushel of apples, sold by the bushel, bushels of wheat.
It is eight gallons, and the American and imperial versions differ, which is why grain markets quote it carefully. American agriculture still uses it daily. To hide your light under a bushel means to be too modest, from the parable about a lamp.
1nounbushelAn old measure of volume for grain and fruit.
“The farmer sold his apples by the bushel at the Saturday market.”
bushel is a measure.
Old French boissel comes from a Gaulish word meaning a handful, ultimately from a Celtic root for the palm.
Proto-Indo-European
*gwost-
Proto-Celtic
*bostā — palm, fist
cel-gau
*bostyā — handful
Old French
boissel
Middle English
busshel
English, today
bushel
Built from
From Middle English busshel, from Old French boissel, from boisse, a grain measure based on cel-gau bostyā (“handful”), from Proto-Celtic bostā (“palm, fist”) (compare Breton boz (“hollow of the hand”), Old Irish bas), from Proto-Indo-European gwost-, gwosdʰ- (“branch”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA