English
bosk
Bosk comes from Middle English bush ‘grove, wood’, and goes back to Old English *busc.
- Old Englishc. 450–1150*buscreconstructed
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500bush‘grove, wood’
- Middle English, derivedc. 1150–1500boskvariants of bush
- Englishearliest quotation 1815same form
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Old Englishc. 450–1150*buscreconstructed
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500bush‘grove, wood’
- Middle English, derivedc. 1150–1500boskvariants of bush
- Englishearliest quotation 1815same form
Earliest quotation: 1815, Walter Scott, Canto Fifth: “Meantime, through well-known bosk and dell, / I'll lead…”
The story
From Middle English bosk, busk, variants of bush (‘grove, wood; thicket, underbrush; bush; branch of a shrub or tree’), from Old English *busc (attested only in place names), likely from Anglo-Latin bosca (‘firewood’), from Late Latin busca, buscus, boscus (‘wood; woodland’), from Frankish and Proto-West Germanic *busk, from Proto-Germanic *buskaz (‘bush, thicket’), probably from Proto-Indo-European *bʰuH- (‘to become, grow, appear’). The English word is cognate with Dalmatian buasc (‘forest; wood’), French bois (‘wood (material); wood, woodland’), Italian bosco (‘wood (wooded area)’), Sicilian voscu (‘wood’), Middle Dutch bosch, busch (modern Dutch bos (‘forest; wood’)), Norwegian busk (‘bush, shrub’); Occitan boscs, Old High German busk (‘bush’) (Middle High German busch, bosch, modern German Busch (‘bush, shrub; brush, scrub’)), Portuguese bosque (‘grove’), Spanish bosque (‘forest’), West Frisian bosk (‘forest’).
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *bʰuH- ‘to become, grow, appear’
be, been, power, future, present, possible, build, physical, improve, presence, essential, absence, contribution, bond, physician, entity, bound, approve, probability, absent, favorable, distribute, booth, contributor, fiat, bun, favourable, retribution, attribution, imp, impotent, impossibility, aren, bower, beamer, phylogeny, physic, phylum, approbation, bist, 80 more
through Proto-Germanic *buskaz ‘bush, thicket’
bouquet, bosque, busk, 13 more
through Late Latin busca ‘wood’
through Middle English bush ‘grove, wood’
Today it means
noun A bush.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Old English *busc / bosk