grove
1 Americannoun
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a small wood or forested area, usually with no undergrowth.
a grove of pines.
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a small orchard or stand of fruit-bearing trees, especially citrus trees.
a grove of lemon trees.
noun
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Sir George, 1820–1900, English musicologist.
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Robert Moses Lefty, 1900–75, U.S. baseball player.
noun
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a small wooded area or plantation
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a road lined with houses and often trees, esp in a suburban area
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( capital as part of a street name )
Ladbroke Grove
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Related Words
See forest.
Other Word Forms
- groved adjective
- groveless adjective
Etymology
Origin of grove
First recorded before 900; Middle English; Old English grāf
Explanation
A grove can be an orchard or a clump of trees that doesn't have much undergrowth and occupies a contained area, like an orange grove or a small shady grove of oak trees where you can have a picnic. You wouldn't call a forest or a large woods a grove — that's too big. And you wouldn't call two or three trees a grove either — that's too small. A grove is somewhere in between. You'll often hear the word refer to a group of trees cultivated by humans, often for commercial purposes, such as an apple grove planted to supply produce to grocery stores.
Vocabulary lists containing grove
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
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"Indian Summer Sun" and "Almost Evenly Divided"
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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.
She revamped “about half” the house as soon as she moved in, drawing inspiration from the property’s grove of deodar trees.
From MarketWatch • Apr. 7, 2026
"The sacred grove, which is now seen as a symbol of identity for all Yoruba people, is probably the last in Yoruba culture," it adds.
From BBC • Jan. 19, 2026
The truck lumbered through the forest in the setting sun, stopping at a grove of bigcone Douglas-fir trees, where West and a colleague unloaded the cage, lifted the door and waited as Orange peeked outside.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 17, 2025
In a moment of silence, they rushed outside to shelter in a nearby grove.
From Barron's • Nov. 7, 2025
“This water is receding, and I want the boat out of the grove before the water is gone.”
From Each Little Bird That Sings by Deborah Wiles
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.
