Bosky

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /ˈbɒski/

Definitions

1. covered with dense trees and shrubs or thickly wooded
2. characterized by abundant vegetation and bushes creating a woodland setting
3. filled with thick growth of trees and undergrowth in a wooded manner

Etymology: "Bosky" is built from "bosk," a poetic word for a small wood or thicket, plus the adjective-forming suffix "-y," which gives the sense "full of" or "having the qualities of." So a bosky hillside is one dense with trees, and the word carries the image of a wood with the cover pressed close around it. The root "bosk" is itself an old English word, and the suffix behind it has a long ancestry. The "-y" ending descends from an Old English form, "-ig," which was attached to nouns to make adjectives throughout Old and Middle English, and it appears in countless everyday words such as "stony," "leafy," and "milky." Attaching it to "bosk" gave English a compact way to describe ground that is wooded or shaded, a use that stayed largely literary.

Synonyms: wooded, bushy, shrubby, forest-like, overgrown

Antonyms: bare, cleared, deforested, open, desolate