Bushland is a compound of bush + land. Bush ('uncultivated country') is from Dutch bosch ('woods'), reinforced in colonial usage; land is from Old English land. The historical trail runs through bosch in Dutch and land in Old English. Morphologically, bushland is transparent: it is a compound of bush + land. Used as a noun, bushland now means "uncultivated land covered with natural scrub or bush, especially in Australia", so the present definition can be read against the older forms and meanings. The same lexical family is also visible in related forms such as bush and land. The result is a borrowed or transmitted form whose modern spelling carries a compact record of its route into English.