bough

American  

[bou] / baʊ /

noun

1. a branch of a tree, especially one of the larger or main branches.

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bough British  

/ baʊ /

noun

1. any of the main branches of a tree

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Related Words

See branch.

Other Word Forms

• boughless adjective
• underbough noun

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

Example Sentences

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

At Cold Comfort Farm “dawn crept over the Downs like a sinister white animal, followed by the snarling cries of a wind eating its way between the black boughs of the thorns.”

From The Wall Street Journal

The men sit on rugs beneath the wide boughs of a tree, while two women sit on mats in the shade of a nearby veranda, as goats and chickens roam the compound.

From BBC

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

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

Related Words

• sprig