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privet hedge

privet hedge

1 3.5
A row of privet bushes planted close together to make a living fence for a garden
  • noun
  • /ˈprɪvɪt hɛdʒ/
translation icon : seto de aligustre
  • The children played hide and seek behind the tall privet hedge that surrounded their grandmother's backyard.

Examples

  • She trimmed the privet hedge carefully to maintain its neat shape and ensure the garden looked tidy.

  • They sold the big shingled house on the beach, where we spent our summers as children, and moved to this smaller one behind high privet hedges.

    Fiction book (1991)
  • It was right here and there was a huge privet hedge around the whole thing.

  • From these original plants came all of the privet hedges in the southeastern United States.

    Academic text (2015)
  • It was smack dab in the middle of this bed with a huge chunky privet hedge that actually came out.

  • Perhaps the first new plant the Berckmanses distributed was the Amur privet hedge (Ligustrum amurense).

    Academic text (2015)
  • Clustered by Mrs. O'Shane's porch and along Peterson's untrimmed privet hedge lurked the shadow things.

    Fiction book (1997)
  • The landscape is a little overgrown, and the flora is mostly the kind of stuff they don't use much anymore, such as forsythia, pussy willow, and privet hedges.

    Fiction book (1998)
  • Mr. Crocus, her neighbor on the side with only a naked privet hedge, came out into his own postage stamp of a backyard to walk his hateful yippy dog, Felicia.

    Fiction book (1993)
  • The garden was beautifully lined with a privet hedge that provided the perfect boundary between the yard and the sidewalk.

Synonyms

hedge
vsprivet hedge
44 2.0

A row of closely planted bushes that forms a low natural fence

is made from a specific shrub species and often used as a garden screen
hedgerow
vsprivet hedge
5 5.9

A row of bushes planted close together that makes a low fence between fields or beside a road

is used mainly for garden boundaries and screening rather than marking field edges

Surface Forms

privet hedge singular
privet hedges plural

Morphology

privet + hedge

The meaning 'a hedge made from privet bushes' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'privet' (a shrub species) with 'hedge' (a planted row of shrubs). This straightforward noun+noun composition follows common naming patterns (e.g. 'boxwood hedge') and is cross-linguistically predictable, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will understand it.

Etymology

Privet hedge is the name for a hedge made from the dense shrub privet. Gardeners plant these bushes close together to make a living fence or screen for 'privacy' and to mark a garden 'boundary', so the phrase means a hedge of privet used as a screen or fence.