[f. BOSK (not recorded between 14th and 19th c., but preserved in dial.) + -Y; or alteration of BUSKY, after It. boscoso.] Consisting of or covered with bushes or underwood; full of thickets, bushy. (Also transf.)
1593. Peele, Chron. Edw. I. (1874), 407. In this bosky wood Bury his corpse.
1610. Shaks., Temp., IV. i. 81. My boskie acres, and my vnshrubd downe.
1634. Milton, Comus, 312. And every bosky bourn.
1757. Dyer, Fleece (1807), 79. The bosky bourns of Alfred’s shires.
1810. Scott, Lady of L., III. xiv. The bosky thickets.
1851. H. Melville, Whale, v. 33. A brown and brawny company with bosky beards.
