Other forms: heaths
A heath is open uncultivated land with low shrubs. A windy heath, walk on the heath, gorse on the heath.
It is not natural but made: heathland exists because grazing and burning stopped trees returning, and it disappears within decades if that stops. It is now a rare habitat in Europe. Note heather, the plant, which grows on it and shares the name.
1nounheathOpen uncultivated land with low shrubs.
“We walked across the heath, where only heather and gorse grew.”
heath is a landscape.
Old English haeth means untilled land or heather, from a Germanic root.
Proto-Indo-European
*kayt- — forest, wasteland, pasture
Proto-Germanic
*haiþī — heath, waste, untilled land
Proto-West Germanic
*haiþi
Old English
hǣþ — heath, untilled land, waste; heather
Middle English
heth
English, today
heath
From Middle English heth, heeth, hethe, from Old English hǣþ (“heath, untilled land, waste; heather”), from Proto-West Germanic haiþi, from Proto-Germanic haiþī (“heath, waste, untilled land”), from Proto-Indo-European kayt- (“forest, wasteland, pasture”). Cognate with Dutch heide (“heath, moorland”), German Heide (“heath, moor”), Norwegian hei (“heath”), Swedish hed (“heath, moorland”), owl coit (“forest”), Welsh coed (“forest”), Latin bucetum (“pastureland”) literally “cow-pasture” -cetum (“place of, grove of”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA