BOUGH

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does bough mean? 

• BOUGH (noun)
  The noun BOUGH has 1 sense:

1. any of the larger branches of a tree

  Familiarity information: BOUGH used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BOUGH (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Any of the larger branches of a tree

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Hypernyms ("bough" is a kind of...):

limb; tree branch (any of the main branches arising from the trunk or a bough of a tree)

 Context examples 

The house was approached by gravelled driveways which wound about through wide-spreading lawns and under the interlacing boughs of tall poplars.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

Here is a nut, said he, catching one down from an upper bough, to exemplify: a beautiful glossy nut, which, blessed with original strength, has outlived all the storms of autumn.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

When it was mid-day, they saw a beautiful snow-white bird sitting on a bough, which sang so delightfully that they stood still and listened to it.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

I found him asleep twice when I awoke; but I did not fear to go to sleep again, although the boughs or bats or something napped almost angrily against the window-panes.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Bill had finished his pipe and was helping his companion to spread the bed of fur and blanket upon the spruce boughs which he had laid over the snow before supper.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Brown, soft-eyed children ran out from the quaint stone hovels to offer nosegays, or bunches of oranges still on the bough.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Away in the distance before and behind, the green boughs, now turning in places to a coppery redness, shot their broad arches across the track.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A waft of wind came sweeping down the laurel-walk, and trembled through the boughs of the chestnut: it wandered away—away—to an indefinite distance—it died.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Then Lord John threw a bundle of twigs upon the fire, and their red glare lit up the intent faces of my companions and flickered over the great boughs above our heads.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Not a bough waved, not the gleam of a musket-barrel betrayed the presence of our foes.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)