thicket
Americannoun
-
thickets
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of thicket
before 1000; Old English thiccet (not recorded in ME), equivalent to thicce thick + -et noun suffix
Explanation
A thicket refers to a dense growth of bushes or trees — what you try to avoid by tending to the plants in your backyard. The word thicket comes from the word thick, which means close together or dense. If you are "thick as thieves," then you are close friends. A thicket is a growth of trees, bushes, or shrubbery that is very close together, often making it difficult for people to walk through or for Red Riding Hood to find her way out of to Grandmother's.
Vocabulary lists containing thicket
"The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell
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This Week in Words: December 2 - 8, 2017
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
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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:
Whether Mr. Ueda or Ms. Takaichi—or preferably both in concert—can navigate out of this thicket will determine whether the yen needs rescuing again soon.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 2026
Operating data centers in space would avoid an environmental thicket and require less water and energy for cooling.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 9, 2026
Along a remote stretch of the north Somerset coast, views of rolling hills and farmhouses are suddenly interrupted by a thicket of construction cranes.
From BBC ● Jan. 26, 2026
A thicket of partnerships has sprung up in autonomous driving, with Uber also working with Waymo in US cities Austin and Atlanta, and with China's WeRide in Gulf locations such as Abu Dhabi.
From Barron's ● Nov. 12, 2025
They pull off his cap to reveal a thicket of strawberry-blond hair.
From "The Last Cuentista" by Donna Barba Higuera
Zookeepers then pivot to old-fashioned tracking, braving thickets of brambles and stinging nettles in search of footprints.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026
The seedlings and saplings are mostly knee-high to chest-high and mixed with thickets of ceanothus and other post-fire brush growing amid the true giants that stand dead among them.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 13, 2026
Pygmy slow loris are a species of primate that comes from the rainforests and bamboo thickets of Vietnam, Laos, eastern Cambodia and southern China.
From BBC ● Jun. 16, 2025
Traveling along the Paraná, Darwin observed thickets which “afford a retreat for capybaras and jaguars. The fear of the latter animal quite destroyed all pleasure in scrambling through the woods.”
From Salon ● Sep. 7, 2024
He razored his lip and chin as well, but kept his side-whiskers, two great thickets of wiry golden hair that covered most of his cheeks from ear to jaw.
From "A Game of Thrones" by George R.R. Martin
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.
