bush

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A low shrub with many branches.
• noun A thick growth of shrubs; a thicket.
• noun Land covered with dense vegetation or undergrowth.
• noun Land remote from settlement.
• noun A shaggy mass, as of hair.
• noun Vulgar Slang A growth of pubic hair.
• noun A fox's tail.
• noun Archaic A clump of ivy hung outside a tavern to indicate the availability of wine inside.
• noun Obsolete A tavern.
• intransitive verb To grow or branch out like a bush.
• intransitive verb To extend in a bushy growth.
• intransitive verb To decorate, protect, or support with bushes.
• adjective Slang Bush-league; second-rate.
• transitive verb To furnish or line with a bushing.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To furnish with a bush; line (an orifice, as one in which a pivot or axle works) with metal to prevent abrasion or to reduce the diameter.
• To grow thick or bushy; serve or show as a bush.
• To set bushes about; support with bushes or branched sticks: as, to bush peas.
• 2. To use a bush-harrow on: as, to bush a piece of wood.
• 3. To cover (seeds) by using a bush-harrow: as, to bush in seeds.
• To dress a stone with a bush-hammer.
• noun In milling, a packing of wooden blocks placed in the eye of the bedstone and forming the upper bearing of the spindle.
• noun A thicket; a clump of shrubs or trees.
• noun A shrub with branches; a thick shrub; technically, a low and much-branched shrub.
• noun A stretch of forest or of shrubby vegetation: a district covered with brushwood, or shrubs, trees, etc.; a wide uncultivated tract of country covered with scrub: as, the bush was here very dense; to take to the bush (to become a bush-ranger): so used especially in the British colonies of Australasia.
• noun A branch of a tree fixed or hung out as a tavern sign. See ale-stake and ale-garland.
• noun Hence The tavern itself.
• noun The tail or brush of a fox.
• noun A lining of harder material let into an orifice to guard against wearing by friction; the perforated box or tube of metal fitted into certain parts of machinery, as the pivot-holes of a clock, the center of a cart-wheel, etc., to receive the wear of pivots, journals, and the like. Also called
• noun A tailors' thimble. Also called bushel.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• intransitive verb To branch thickly in the manner of a bush.
• transitive verb To set bushes for; to support with bushes.
• transitive verb To use a bush harrow on (land), for covering seeds sown; to harrow with a bush.
• transitive verb To furnish with a bush, or lining.
• noun (Mech.) A lining for a hole to make it smaller; a thimble or ring of metal or wood inserted in a plate or other part of machinery to receive the wear of a pivot or arbor.
• noun (Gun.) A piece of copper, screwed into a gun, through which the venthole is bored.
• noun A thicket, or place abounding in trees or shrubs; a wild forest.
• noun A shrub; esp., a shrub with branches rising from or near the root; a thick shrub or a cluster of shrubs.
• noun A shrub cut off, or a shrublike branch of a tree.
• noun A shrub or branch, properly, a branch of ivy (as sacred to Bacchus), hung out at vintners' doors, or as a tavern sign; hence, a tavern sign, and symbolically, the tavern itself.
• noun (Hunting) The tail, or brush, of a fox.
• noun to approach anything in a round-about manner, instead of coming directly to it; -- a metaphor taken from hunting.
• noun (Bot.) a variety of bean which is low and requires no support (Phaseolus vulgaris, variety nanus). See Bean, 1.
• noun (Zoöl.) a beautiful South African antelope (Tragelaphus sylvaticus); -- so called because found mainly in wooden localities. The name is also applied to other species.
• noun (Zoöl.) the serval. See Serval.
• noun (Zoöl.) a bird of the genus Pratincola, of the Thrush family.
• noun (Zoöl.) See Potto.