Also 5 buscage, (7 boxage). [ME. boskage, a. OF. boscage (mod.F. bocage) wooded country, a thicket:—late L. boscāticum, f. late L. boscu-m wood: see -AGE; cf. the It. equivalent boscaggio.]
1. A mass of growing trees or shrubs; a thicket, grove; woody undergrowth; sylvan scenery.
c. 1400. Ywaine & Gaw., 1671. Als he went in that boskage, He fond a letil ermytage.
1483. Caxton, G. de la Tour, I ij b. She … suffred so moche euylle and meschyef in the buscage.
1522. Skelton, Why nat to Court, II. 50. And with such corage Hunte the boskage.
1626. Bacon, New Atl. (1650), 1. A Land Flat to our sight, and full of Boscage.
a. 1697. Aubrey, Surrey (1718), IV. 173. The South Part is covered with thick Boscages of Box-Trees, which gives the Name to this Hill.
1830. Tennyson, Dream Fair Women, 243. The sombre boskage of the wood.
1858. Carlyle, Fredk. Gt., II. VII. vii. 260. The cool boscages and orangeries of the place.
† 2. The pictorial representation of wooded landscape; also, a decorative design imitating branches and foliage. Obs.
1610. Folkingham, Art Survey, II. vi. 58. Compartiments are Blankes or Figures bordered with Anticke Boscage or Crotesko-woorke.
1624. Wotton, Archit. (1672), 59. Chearful Paintings in Feasting and Banquetting Rooms … Landskips and Boscage, and such wild works in open Tarraces.
1679. [C. Cotton], The Confinement: a Poem, 51.
| Boscage within each Chamber must be shown, | |
| Or the mean pile, no Architect will own. |
† 3. Law. (Meaning disputed; see quots.) Obs.
1483. Caxton, Gold. Leg., 145/2. He gaf to them of that hows the fee ryall of that buscage.
1598. Manwood, Lawes Forest, xii. § 1 (1615), 88. To be quit of Boscage … is to be discharged of paying any duetie for windfall woods.
1672. Cowell’s Interpr., Boscage, is such sustenance as Wood and Trees yield to Cattel, viz. Mast.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., Boscage sometimes denoted a tax or duty laid on wood brought into the city.
