Also 34 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. A bush. Obs. exc. dial.
1297. R. Glouc., 547. Hii houede vnder boskes.
c. 1300. Prov. Hendyng, xx. Vnder boske shal men weder abide, quoþ Hendyng.
c. 1325. E. E. Allit. P., B. 322. Boþe boskez & bourez & wel bounden penez.
2. A thicket of bushes and underwood; a small wood.
1814. Scott, Ld. Isles, V. xv. Meantime, through well-known bosk and dell, Ill lead where we may shelter well.
1847. Tennyson, Princess, i. 110. Blowing bosks of wilderness.
1862. Lytton, Str. Story, II. 82. Every bosk and dingle.
1878. H. Phillips, Poems fr. Span. & Germ., 69. In a flowery bosque there flies a bird.
1885. W. D. Howells, in Century Mag., XXX. Aug., 544/1. It is planted with pleasant little bosks and trim hedges.
Hence † boske addre, lit. bush-adder: a viper, a serpent (L. coluber).
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.