boscage, boskage
(ˈbɒskɪdʒ)
Also 5 buscage, (7 boxage).
[ME. boskage, a. OF. boscage (mod.F. bocage) wooded country, a thicket:—late L. boscāticum, f. late L. boscu-m wood: see -age; cf. the It. equivalent boscaggio.]
1. A mass of growing trees or shrubs; a thicket, grove; woody undergrowth; sylvan scenery.
| c 1400 Ywaine & Gaw. 1671 Als he went in that boskage, He fond a letil ermytage. 1483 Caxton G. de la Tour I ij b, She..suffred so moche euylle and meschyef in the buscage. 1522 Skelton Why nat to Court II. 50 And with such corage Hunte the boskage. 1626 Bacon New Atl. (1650) 1 A Land Flat to our sight, and full of Boscage. 1719 J. Aubrey Surrey IV. 173 Thick Boscages of Box-Trees. 1830 Tennyson Dream Fair Women 243 The sombre boskage of the wood. 1858 Carlyle Fredk. Gt. II. vii. vii. 260 The cool boscages and orangeries of the place. |
† 2. The pictorial representation of wooded landscape; also, a decorative design imitating branches and foliage. Obs.
| 1610 W. Folkingham Art Survey ii. vi. 58 Compartiments are Blankes or Figures bordered with Anticke Boscage or Crotesko-woorke. 1624 Wotton Archit. (1672) 59 Chearful Paintings in Feasting and Banquetting Rooms..Landskips and Boscage, and such wild works in open Tarraces. 1679 The Confinement 57 Boscage within each Chamber must be shown, Or the mean pile no Architect will own. |
† 3. Law. (Meaning disputed; see quots.) Obs.
| 1483 Caxton Gold. Leg. 145/2 He gaf to them of that hows the fee ryall of that buscage. 1598 J. Manwood Lawes Forest xii. §1 (1615) 88 To be quit of Boscage..is to be discharged of paying any duetie for windfall woods. 1672 Cowell's Interpr., Boscage, is such sustenance as Wood and Trees yield to Cattel, viz. Mast. 1753 Chambers Cycl. Supp., Boscage sometimes denoted a tax or duty laid on wood brought into the city. |