Bushy

a. [f. BUSH sb.¹ + -Y.]

  1.  Abounding in bushes; overgrown with shrubs or underwood.

1382.  Wyclif, Isa. vii. 19. In alle busshi places.

1552.  Huloet, Busshy places, Vespices.

1575.  Turberv., Bk. Venerie, Pref. Seruants such as beat the bushie woods To make their masters sport.

1641.  Milton, Ch. Discip., I. (1851), 32. They seek the dark, the bushie, the tangled Forrest.

1725.  De Foe, Voy. round World (1840), 305. The country being … something more bushy, and here and there a few trees.

1885.  Manch. Examiner, 15 May, 5/2. The enemy still occupied the bushy ravine running down to the river.

  2.  Growing like a bush; shrub-like.

1567.  Maplet, Gr. Forest, 44. Fumitorie … is a bushie or shrublike Herbe, like to Coreander.

1579.  Spenser, Sheph. Cal., Dec., 2. All in the shadowe of a bushye brere.

1667.  Milton, P. L., IV. 696. Each odorous bushie shrub.

1719.  De Foe, Crusoe (1840), I. iii. 54. A thick bushy tree like a fir.

1814.  Wordsw., White Doe of Ryl., I. 96. The spread Of the elder’s bushy head.

1861.  Pratt, Flower. Pl., IV. 111.

  3.  Of hair: Growing thick like a bush.

1611.  Bible, Song of Sol. v. 11. His locks are bushy.

a. 1613.  J. Dennys, in Arb., Garner, I. 150. Some lusty horse … Whose bushy tail upon the ground doth track.

1652.  Gaule, Magastrom., 305. A bushy head of haire.

1843.  Carlyle, Past & Pr., II. x. (1872), 78. A man with eminent nose, bushy brows and clear-flashing eyes.

1873.  Black, Pr. Thule, i. 1. The gusts of wind that blew about his bushy grey beard.

  † b.  Of persons: With long thick hair; also quasi-sb. Obs.

1615.  P. Small, Man’s May, in Farr’s S. P. (1848), 331. Time still describ’d in poets thus we finde, Bushy before, but very bald behinde.

1650.  Bulwer, Anthropomet., II. 56. He does that which is ridiculous … who is … a Bushie among those who are Poled.

  4.  Puffed out like a bush.

1756.  Nugent, Gr. Tour, Germany, II. 298. They wear pointed hats, and monstrous bushy ruffs.

1832.  Fraser’s Mag., VI. 386. All … had taken more stuff than necessary for their clothes…. It is as if the women could not be bushy enough, the men not puffy enough, to please themselves.

  † 5.  Dwelling among the bushes. rare.

1563.  T. Howell, Arb. Amitie (1879), 83. The Nightingal … gettes the peerlesse prayse, The bushie birdes among.

  6.  Comb., as bushy-whiskered, -wigged, adjs.

1832.  Carlyle, in Fraser’s Mag., V. 402. Old sedentary bushy-wigged Cave. Ibid. (1837), Fr. Rev. (1871), II. I. ix. 40. Impassioned bushy-whiskered youth threatening suicide.

1812.  J. H. Vaux, Flash Dict., A man who is poor is said to be ‘at Bushy park,’ or ‘in the park.’ [Cf. BUSHED.]