Also 3–4 boske, (9 bosque, rare). [The early ME. bosk(e was a variant of busk, BUSH; bosk and busk are still used dialectally for BUSH; but the modern literary word may have been evolved from BOSKY.]

1

  † 1.  A bush. Obs. exc. dial.

2

1297.  R. Glouc., 547. Hii houede vnder boskes.

3

c. 1300.  Prov. Hendyng, xx. Vnder boske shal men weder abide, quoþ Hendyng.

4

c. 1325.  E. E. Allit. P., B. 322. Boþe boskez & bourez & wel bounden penez.

5

  2.  A thicket of bushes and underwood; a small wood.

6

1814.  Scott, Ld. Isles, V. xv. Meantime, through well-known bosk and dell, I’ll lead where we may shelter well.

7

1847.  Tennyson, Princess, i. 110. Blowing bosks of wilderness.

8

1862.  Lytton, Str. Story, II. 82. Every bosk and dingle.

9

1878.  H. Phillips, Poems fr. Span. & Germ., 69. In a flowery bosque there flies a bird.

10

1885.  W. D. Howells, in Century Mag., XXX. Aug., 544/1. It is planted with pleasant little bosks and trim hedges.

11

  Hence † boske addre, lit. ‘bush-adder’: a viper, a serpent (L. coluber).

12

1382.  Wyclif, Ex. vii. 9. Tak thin ȝerde, and throw it bifore Pharao, and be it turned into a bosk eddre … The ȝerde … was turnyd into a boske addre.

13