forest

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A large area thickly covered with trees.

   We went for a long walk through the forest.

2. 2
   noun

   A very large number of tall, thin things grouped closely together.

   A forest of cranes rose above the construction site.

3. 3
   verb

   To cover an area of land with trees.

   The charity is working to forest the bare hillsides.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Forest came through French from the Latin phrase forestis silva, literally “wood outside,” from foris, “out of doors, outside,” and silva, “a wood.” In early English law, a forest was an area, usually belonging to the king, reserved for hunting; it could include woodland, heath, scrub, and farmland and was less densely wooded than forests today.

Inherited from Middle English forest, from Old French forest, from Early Medieval Latin forestis. The Latin could be: * from foris (“outside”), as in forestis (silva) "(wood) outside," * or from Frankish or Proto-West Germanic *furhisti (“forest, fir-grove, wooded land”), equivalent to fir + hurst. In which case, related to Old English fyrhþe (“forested land”), Old High German forst, forsti (“forest”), Old Norse fýri (“pine forest”). Doublet of frith. Cognate with Dutch vorst (“copse, grove, woodland”), German Forst (“forest”). In this sense, mostly displaced the native Middle English wode, fr…

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