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:
Sometimes seven-year-old Bayas would stand on a slender bough and lean out until it bent under his bulk, then ride it to a neighboring trunk.
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
If you bend a balsam bough in the summer, it won’t snap; after a few frosts, it will.
From New York Times ● Dec. 12, 2022
For on each bough hung a picture of a clansman, a reminder of the courtyards so far away.
From "In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson" by Bette Bao Lord
Not far away, I had tangled a dozen feet of line in the boughs of a hemlock tree—for the third time that morning.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 5, 2026
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 ● Oct. 22, 2025
Desert night lizards sleep and forage beneath their fallen boughs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 28, 2024
They were London planetrees, and no birds flitted in their boughs.
From Slate ● Mar. 16, 2024
The dearth of boughs and pine needles made it light and easy to carry.
From "The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street" by Karina Yan Glaser
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
