Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Shrubs, saplings, and herbaceous plants growing beneath trees in a forest.
- noun The condition of being less than fully grown.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Short, fine under-hair on a skin.
- noun Specifically, in forestry, the ground-cover, underbrush, and young trees below the large sapling stage.
- noun That which grows under; especially, shrubs or small trees growing beneath or among large ones.
- noun The state or condition of being undergrown.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun That which grows under trees; specifically, shrubs or small trees growing among large trees.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The plants in a forest which only reach a relatively low height (such as shrubs and bushes).
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the brush (small trees and bushes and ferns etc.) growing beneath taller trees in a wood or forest
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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All the undergrowth is scorched brown and black by the cold.
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On a crystalline, perfectly blue morning in June, a young married couple driving across upper Michigan stop to picnic in a clearing, then watch in horror as their two and a half year old daughter suddenly vanishes, swallowed by what they discover hidden in undergrowth is a tiny hole in a poorly sealed and long-forgotten mineshaft.
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Unit, often camped in undergrowth while on operations in CAMBODIA.
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Twining through the undergrowth were the bittersweet vines.
Motive For Marriage Markowiak, Linda 1997
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The undergrowth was a nuisance, being composed of pea-vines, clover, nettles, cane and briery berry bushes.
A Virginia Scout Hugh Pendexter 1907
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I walked across once, and found the dense growth of banana, cocoanut, mango, cotton and other trees, and undergrowth, which is termed here "the bush," terminating abruptly at the ragged back fences of the neighborhood.
The Liberian Exodus. An Account of Voyage of the First Emigrants in the Bark "Azor," and Their Reception at Monrovia, with a Description of Liberia--Its Customs and Civilization, Romances and Prospects. Alfred Brockenbrough Williams 1878
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Govt plagued by 'undergrowth' of ministers, advisers and the press - Goldsmith doesn't seem to have enjoyed being part of it
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Justice Stephen G. Breyer told Rosenstein he would like to clear away the "undergrowth" of the state's arguments about its own rules of procedure to get to the constitutional question of whether Osborne has a right to the evidence.
unknown title 2009
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This open ground beneath the trees made walking anywhere easy in contrast to eastern forests with their thick bushy undergrowth and giant jackstraws deadfalls.
Bird Cloud Annie Proulx 2011
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They are wind-swept because cows have browsed out the undergrowth.
Bird Cloud Annie Proulx 2011
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