noun
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a person who lives in the bush
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an unsophisticated uncouth person
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a member of a bush fire brigade
adjective
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covered or overgrown with bushes
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thick and shaggy
bushy eyebrows
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of bushy
First recorded in 1350–1400, bushy is from the Middle English word busshi. See bush 1, -y 1
Explanation
Bushy things have the rounded shape and thick texture of a bush. You could describe your grandfather as having thick gray hair and bushy black eyebrows. You can use the adjective bushy to describe all kinds of things — you might wake up with your curly hair looking quite bushy, or adopt a particularly bushy old cat from the animal shelter. Shrubs are usually bushy, of course, while other plants may grow tall and spindly or spread in a squat and bushy shape. In the 14th century, bushy meant "overgrown with bushes."
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:
Zaidi, who dresses in dark blue suits and has a bushy black mustache and cropped beard, was quickly embraced by Washington.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 30, 2026
At 41, Kushner retains a bushy head of hair and boyish demeanor.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 30, 2026
"Here we have two hominin species that are together. And human evolution is not linear, it's a bushy tree, there are life forms that go extinct."
From Science Daily ● May 16, 2026
Known for their reddish coat and white-tipped bushy tail, they are found across Europe, Asia, North America, and parts of Africa.
From BBC ● Mar. 12, 2026
The group that had walked in before them were in the backyard filling up their baskets with the lemons from a tall, bushy tree.
From "The Way to Rio Luna" by Zoraida Cordova
The island tree is shorter and bushier, its bark thicker and its cones rounder than the mainland tree.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 20, 2026
If they survive, those same trees will be bushier and healthier the following year.
From Salon ● May 16, 2024
To plant seedlings with bushier roots, the company acquired a machine that pumps out cigarlike tubes of soil wrapped in brown paper and produces far more seedlings a week than a human could manage.
From New York Times ● Apr. 4, 2024
In her presentation, Hurd showed a neon green–and–yellow neuron with sparse, stunted branches next to its much bushier normal counterpart.
From Science Magazine ● Aug. 31, 2023
Still curly, but the curls were larger and bushier and hung past her shoulders.
From "Boy 2.0" by Tracey Baptiste
But Kimbrel, the Red Sox closer, and Turner, the Dodgers’ third baseman, now seem to be competing for the unofficial title of bushiest, scraggliest, most unkempt beard in sports.
From New York Times ● Oct. 22, 2018
I’d plant more hydrangeas, but it has some of the bushiest jasmine I’ve yet seen.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 4, 2016
I’d written three features before I’d arrived, but they were the bushiest of the bush league.
From Salon ● Mar. 21, 2013
He felt and looked like a fighter pilot; he had grown the bushiest, sharpest-pointed fighter-pilot mustache in England.
From Time Magazine Archive
They came upon a charming squirrel with the bushiest tail possible, and while they were admiring it Mr Greenop was called to attend on a customer.
From A Pair of Clogs by Amy Walton
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
