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shrubbery

UK/ˈʃɹʌbəɹi/US/ˈʃɹʌbəɹi/
nounB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #11,625 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: shrubberies

A shrubbery is an area planted with bushes. Behind the shrubbery, a dense shrubbery, plant a shrubbery.

It is a Victorian garden feature and the word carries that whole world with it, which is why it sounds comic today. A shrubbery does the work of a wall: it screens, it needs no maintenance to speak of, and it holds birds.

Chris Wood (User:chris_j_wood). · CC BY-SA 4.0

Definitions of shrubbery

  1. 1nounshrubberyAn area planted with bushes.B2+

    “The cat disappeared into the shrubbery at the bottom of the garden.”

shrubbery is a planting.

Where it comes from

  1. Old English

    *sċrob

  2. Middle English

    schrub

  3. English

    shrub

  4. English, today

    shrubbery

Built from

  • sċrybb · Old English — a shrub; shrubbery; underbrush

From shrub + -ery. shrub comes 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 A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

shrubbery in the wild

  • A shrubbery, shrub border or shrub garden is a part of a garden where shrubs, mostly flowering species, are thickly planted.

    Shrubbery

  • Aviaries often contain plants and shrubbery to simulate a natural environment.

    Aviary

  • Shrubland may either occur naturally or be the result of human activity, but in the latter case the terms shrubbery or bushes are more commonly used.

    Shrubland

  • The island is covered with a variety of trees and shrubbery and contains several trails and dirt steps that encircle and lead to the top of the hill.

    Strawberry Hill (San Francisco)

  • The sign was displayed below a column of shrubbery resembling Simpson's beehive.

    The Simpsons and Portland, Oregon

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.

Related words

the sċrybb family

scrub

shrubbery — used about once every 9,395 pages · #11,625 · point at the bar for the others