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gorse

UK/ɡɔːs/US/ɡɔɹs/
nounC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #13,923 of 15,258leans written

Gorse is a prickly evergreen shrub with yellow flowers. A gorse bush, gorse in flower, scratched by gorse.

The saying is that when gorse is out of bloom, kissing is out of fashion, since some flower is open nearly all year. The flowers smell of coconut on a warm day, and the whole plant burns fiercely even when green.

Rosser1954 · Public domain

Definitions of gorse

  1. 1noungorseA prickly evergreen shrub with yellow flowers.C1

    “The hillside was covered with gorse, bright yellow and full of sharp spines.”

gorse is a shrub.

Where it comes from

Old English gors names the shrub, from a Germanic root meaning bristling.

  1. Proto-Germanic

    *gurstaz

  2. Proto-West Germanic

    *gorst

  3. Old English

    gors

  4. Middle English

    gorst

  5. English, today

    gorse

From Middle English gorst, gors, from Old English gors, gorst, from Proto-West Germanic gorst, from Proto-Germanic gurstaz or Proto-West Germanic gerstu (“barley”). Akin to German Gerste (“barley”) and Latin hordeum (“barley”). Also compare Proto-Indo-European ǵʰer- (“to bristle”), whence Proto-Celtic garwos.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

gorse in the wild

  • Ulex (commonly known as gorse, furze, or whin) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Fabaceae.

    Ulex

  • Ulex europaeus, commonly known as gorse, common gorse, furze or whin, is a species of flowering plant native to Western Europe.

    Ulex europaeus

  • The gorse tip moth (Agonopterix nervosa) is a smallish moth species of the family Depressariidae.

    Agonopterix nervosa

  • The caterpillars feed on brooms, namely of the genera Cytisus, Genista, Laburnum (golden chains) and Ulex (gorses).

    Agonopterix nervosa

  • Ulex minor, the dwarf furze or dwarf gorse is an evergreen dwarf shrub in the family Fabaceae, native to eastern England, France, Spain and Portugal.

    Ulex minor

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.