shrub

UK/ˈʃɹʌb/US/ˈʃɹʌb/

nounB1+Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,213 of 15,258mostly written

Other forms: shrubs

A shrub is a woody plant smaller than a tree, branching from the base. A flowering shrub, prune the shrub, a border of shrubs.

The difference from a tree is the branching: a tree has one trunk and a shrub has several stems from the ground. It is not a fixed botanical category, and the same species can grow either way depending on conditions and pruning.

Definitions of shrub

1nounshrubA woody plant smaller than a tree, branching from the base.B1+
“We planted a row of flowering shrubs along the garden fence.”

shrub is a plant.

Where it comes from

Old English scrybb meant brushwood or underbrush. Scrub, in the sense of low vegetation, is the same word.

Old English
*sċrob
Middle English
schrub
English, today
shrub

Built from

sċrybb · Old English — a shrub; shrubbery; underbrush

From Middle English schrub, schrob, (also unassibilated as scrub), from Old English sċrob in placenames and sċrybb (“a shrub; shrubbery; underbrush”); akin to Norwegian skrubbe (“the dwarf cornel tree”). a doublet of scrub.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Trees & Flowers

Practise this word

shrub in the wild

A shrub or bush is a small to medium-sized perennial woody plant.
Shrub
Some tree species never achieve their mature height because of hostile, less than ideal growing conditions in certain areas, and can resemble shrub-sized plants.
Shrub
A shrubbery, shrub border or shrub garden is a part of a garden where shrubs, mostly flowering species, are thickly planted.
Shrubbery
By the late 20th century, shrubs, trees and smaller plants tend to be mixed together in the most visible parts of the garden, hopefully blending successfully.
Shrubbery
While arid, shrub-steppes have sufficient moisture to support a cover of perennial grasses or shrubs, a feature which distinguishes them from deserts.
Shrub–steppe

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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.

From Project Gutenberg, public domain. These sentences are from real books, shown to illustrate the word at work.

Related words

the sċrybb family

scrub

shrub — used about once every 12,385 pages · #12,213 · point at the bar for the others

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