bough
Americannoun
-
boughs
plural
noun
Synonym Usage
See branch.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of bough
First recorded before 1000; Middle English bogh, Old English bōg, bōh “shoulder, bough”; cognate with Old Norse bōgr, Dutch boeg, German Bug; akin to Greek pêchys, Sanskrit bāhu
Explanation
A bough is a large branch from a tree. You know: “When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall...” A “lullaby” about a baby careening to the ground from a broken branch? (Nice.) The original “Hush-a-bye” rhyme, some scholars say, was modified in America to reflect pilgrim children’s observations of Native American mothers hanging cradles from tree branches so that the wind would rock their babies to sleep. Why do poets use bough when branch and limb mean the same thing? Well, maybe because more words rhyme with bough than with those others. Also, “holly boughs” and “blossomy boughs” sound much more musical than “branches.” What rhymes with branches? Cattle ranches?
Vocabulary lists containing bough
Joy To The Word: Christmas Terms
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Christmas Carol Vocab: A Lyrical Lexicon
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Stump Speech: Tree Terminology
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
One of them, photographer Tim Laman, had tied a line to an arrow and shot it over a high bough.
From National Geographic ● Jan. 23, 2024
Stuntman Hurd McClellan had strapped on a bulletproof vest and swung like a pendulum suspended from a tree bough as news accounts said Semmelmeyer shot him several times without mishap.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 31, 2023
There wasn't a single twinkling light or even a scrap of a pine bough, all the way from the subway station to her building.
From Salon ● Dec. 24, 2022
A clump of snow shook loose from a tree bough and barely missed my head.
From New York Times ● Dec. 31, 2019
Stepping stones of polished black marble led around either side of a five-story-tall apple tree, every bough glittering with golden apples, and I don’t mean yellow golden apples like in the grocery store.
From "The Titan's Curse" by Rick Riordan
At last, we found it: a sturdy Douglas fir with boughs that had pleasant symmetry and enough firmness to carry ornaments.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 23, 2025
The ancient Lady Jane Grey Oak in Leicester's Bradgate Park, and a cedar with low-sweeping boughs where The Beatles were photographed at London's Chiswick House, completed the top five in the rankings.
From BBC ● Sep. 25, 2025
Dozens of animals rely on them to survive, from ladder-backed woodpeckers who nest in their trunks to desert night lizards who sleep and forage beneath their fallen boughs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 16, 2025
They were London planetrees, and no birds flitted in their boughs.
From Slate ● Mar. 16, 2024
The old tree at which the saw was working was dead except one great branch that stood green among the masses of brown boughs.
From "Miracles on Maple Hill" by Virginia Sorensen
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
