dense thicket
1
5.7
- noun
:
matorral denso
- Our longtime friend found a small, modest home built of cinder block overlooking a field of corn and backed up against a steep ravine hidden by a dense thicket and impassable brambles.
- dense thicket of trees
Examples
-
As they hiked, they found themselves trapped in a dense thicket, making it hard to find a way out.
-
The land on the other side was higher but was covered with dense thickets of canes and briars.
Fiction book (2002) -
Among the obstacles to hiking through the forest are penguin plants, members of the pineapple family that grow in dense thickets.
Academic text (1995) -
Chuck struggles through a dense thicket beneath a jungle canopy.
Fiction book (2000) -
She loved running through the wildflowers and was particularly interested in this dense thicket along the roadside about halfway home.
Blog text (29) -
In the dark of night, Alobar and Pan collected the viscous powder from the plant tops, filling beakers that they stashed in a particularly dense thicket.
Fiction book (1990) -
He looked like a forest kobold, shaped to the proportions of the dense thickets, wind-felled trees, and tangled, chaotic scrub.
Fiction book (2000) -
The explorer struggled to move through the dense thicket of bushes that blocked the path.
-
We spotted a deer hiding in the dense thicket, barely visible among the tangled branches.
Synonyms
61
2.2
A thick group of small trees and bushes
22
5.1
A thick area of bushes and small trees that grow close together
7
3.9
Low plants and bushes that grow under tall trees in a forest
4
2.8
A forest with trees close together that makes it hard to move or see
Thick plants and small trees that grow above the ground in a forest or field
Antonyms
How Dense
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and transparently derived from combining 'dense' (closely packed) with 'thicket' (a thick growth of bushes or small trees); together they straightforwardly denote an area of tightly packed vegetation. This compositional pattern is cross-linguistically common and would be readily understood by a B1 learner who knows both constituent words.
Etymology
Dense thicket paints a simple picture. A thicket is a group of bushes and dense means packed very close, so the phrase came to mean 'an area of bushes that is hard to pass'.