Forms: 1–2 bóh, bóʓ, 2–4 boȝ, 2–3 boȝh, bou, 3 bohu, bohw, bouh, buȝ, 3–4 bugh, 3–5 bogh, 3–7 bow, 4 boghe, (boght), boow, bouȝ(e, bouw, bowȝe, buh, 4–6 bowe, 5 boe, Sc. bwy, 5–6 Sc. bew, 5–7 boughe, 6 bewch, boowe, bouwe, 5–9 Sc. beugh, 5– bough. [Common Teut.: OE. bóʓ, bóh = OHG. buog (MHG. buoc, mod.G. bug) shoulder, foreleg; MDu. boech, Du. boeg, ON. bôg-r shoulder, bow of a ship:—OTeut. *bôgu-z:—Aryan *bhāghu-s, Skr. bāhu-s arm, foreleg, Gr. πᾶχυς fore-arm.
The sense ‘bough of a tree’ appears to be of exclusively Eng. development; the Bow of a ship is ultimately the same word, but of recent adoption from Scandinavian or Low German. Notwithstanding a certain fitness of sense, this word is in no way related to the vb. stem beug-, OE. búg-an to Bow.]
† 1. The shoulder of an animal. Obs.
c. 1000. Ælfric, Ex. xxix. 22. Þu nymst þone rysle of þam ramme … & þone swyþran boh.
a. 1400[?]. Morte Arth., 188. Seyne bowes of wylde bores with þe braune lechyde.
2. A limb, leg. Sc.
c. 1550. A. Scott, in Evergreen, II. 183. xvi. Ryde down this brae, Thocht ye suld brek a beugh.
1706. in Watson’s Coll. Poems, I. 46 (Jam.). Came and tuik her by the beugh.
3. One of the larger limbs or offshoots of a tree, a main branch; but also applied to a smaller branch.
c. 1000. Ags. Gosp., Matt. xxi. 8. Sume heowun þæra treowa boʓas [c. 1160 Hatton boʓes].
c. 1200. Trin. Coll. Hom., 219. Þe huuemeste þou of þe treuwe.
c. 1200. Ormin, 10002. All cwike & grene boȝhess.
c. 1250. Gen. & Ex., 608. A grene oliues boȝ.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 8291. Apon a bogh þan can he seit.
c. 1420. Anturs of Arth., iv. (1842), 2. Vndur boes thay byde.
1423. James I., Kingis Q., xxxv. From beugh to beugh thay hippit and thai plaid.
c. 1450. Henryson, Mor. Fab., 45. The Bewes braid blomed about mine head.
c. 1500. God speed Plough, 30. Our payment shalbe a styk of A bough.
1555. Eden, Decades W. Ind., III. x. 183. To couer the same with bouwes.
1653. Walton, Angler, 154. Fasten that line to any bow.
1716–8. Lady M. W. Montague, Lett., I. xxxviii. 150. Followed by a man dressed in green boughs.
1875. B. Taylor, Faust, I. xxi. 182. Boughs are groaning and breaking.
† b. transf. and fig. A main branch, as of a vein or artery; a branch of a family, or of anything metaphorically referred to as a tree. Obs.
a. 1225. Ancr. R., 336. Bigin uormest et prude, &sech alle þe bowes þerof.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 24274. All sal be sauued thoru a man þat born es on þis bogh.
c. 1330. R. Brunne, Chron., 40. He wedded þe dukes douhter … Þre bouwes of þam spronge.
1526. Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 54 b. The religyous persone shold not … haue … deed bowes ne corrupte braunches.
1668. Culpepper & Cole, Barthol. Anat., I. vi. 12. The Boughs of the Vein … are sent unto the transverse Muscle.
4. transf. A gallows: cf. similar use of tree. Legal Proverb. ‘The father to the bough, the son to the plough’: supposed to mean that, according to Kentish custom, attainder for felony does not deprive a man’s children of the succession to his property. arch.
1590. Swinburn, Testaments, 53. Or in Kent in Gauelkind … for there it is said, the father to the boughe, and the son to the ploughe.
1596. Spenser, State Irel., Wks. (1862), 553/2. Some … have beene for their goods sake caught up, and carryed straight to the bough.
1870. Morris, Earthly Par., III. IV. 77. If she doom thee to the bough.
5. Comb., as bough-flecked a., flecked by the partial shadow of boughs (poet.); bough-runes, Stephens’s name for the runic characters modified so as to resemble branching trees; also boughless adj.
1870. Morris, Earthly Par., III. IV. 404. The *bough-flecked dazzling light of mid-day shone.
1839. Fraser’s Mag., XX. 345. A birch-tree, entirely *boughless, branchless, and twigless.
1868. G. Stephens, Runic Mon., I. 240. The Ice-runes are read in the same way as the *Bough-runes on the Maeshoue stones.
1669. Worlidge, Syst. Agric. (1681), 249. Field-fares and *Bow-thrushes.
